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DR. SHEDD'S WORKS 



Dogmatic Theology. 

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A History of Christian Doctrine. 

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Homiletics and Pastoral Theology. 

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CALVINISM: PURE AND MIXEB* 

» »t»* m ion 

A DEFENCE 

OF THE 

WESTMINSTER STANDARDS 




WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1893 



ITU UlttIT 
I OF CONGRESS! 



WASHINGTON 



COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW'3 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
NEW YORK, 



PREFACE 



The object of this work is to define and defend the 
tenets of Calvinism in their original purity and self-con- 
sistence, as distinguished from proposed modifications of 
them for the purpose of an alleged improvement. It has 
grown out of the proposal introduced into the Northern 
Presbyterian Church, to revise the Westminster Stand- 
ards. It contains the substance of a pamphlet which the 
author published in opposition to this proposal when it 
was first made, together with discussions of several im- 
portant subjects that have subsequently come up for ex- 
amination during the controversy in the Church. Of 
these, pretention, common and special grace, original sin, 
infant salvation, the " larger hope," and the inerrancy of 
Scripture, are the most prominent. The controversy 
has disclosed the fact, that some Presbyterians deny that 
God may justly pass by any of mankind in the bestow- 
ment of saving grace ; and assert that common grace may 
become saving grace by the sinner's co-operation, that 
original sin is not deserving of eternal death and there- 
fore that infants are not liable to it, that the West- 
minster Standards teach that all the heathen are lost, 
and that the autographs of the inspired writers contained 
more or less of error. The writer endeavors to show 
that the first opinion is fatal to the doctrine of Divine 
sovereignty in election ; that the second is Arminian syn- 



iv 



PllEFACE 



ergism, not Calvinistic monergism ; that the third de- 
stroys the doctrine of infant salvation, by making it only 
a quasi-salvation and a matter of obligation on the part of 
God ; and that the fourth and fifth are misstatements of 
the contents of the Confession. 

When the revision of the Standards was first suggested 
by a few presbyteries, the great majority of the denomina- 
tion had expressed no desire for it, and the measure seemed 
to be the scheme of only a dissatisfied few. But it soon 
appeared that such dissatisfaction with the denomina- 
tional creed was considerably widespread. The presby- 
teries voted to revise their creed by a decisive majority. 
This majority soon showed itself to be composed of a con- 
servative and a radical wing. The former have endeav- 
ored to revise in conformity with the vote of the General 
Assembly, that no changes shall be made that impair the 
integrity of the Calvinistic system. The latter have pro- 
posed alterations, relating principally to the doctrines of 
election and pretention, which, the writer endeavors to 
prove, seriously impair it. 

The history of the revision movement, thus far, con- 
firms the author in his opinion, expressed at the very first, 
that the revision of a creed is latitudinarian in its nature 
and influence. The proposal to revise a creed is commonly 
made, not for the purpose of preserving its strictness, and 
still less to make it stricter, but in order to make it 
looser or more " liberal," as the phrase is. This explains 
the fact, that there has never been a revision of any of 
the great creeds of Christendom. When latitudinarian 
parties have arisen in the Church, and have attempted to 
change the received symbols, the result has been that new 
creeds were formed for the new parties, and the old re- 
mained unaltered. The Semi-Arians and Arians could 
not induce the Ancient Church to revise the Apostles', 



PREFACE 



v 



Tsicene, and Constantinopolitan creeds, in accordance with 
their views of an improved Trinitarianism. The Middle 
Ages witnessed no attempts to revise the great oecumen- 
ical symbols. None of the creeds of the Reformation, 
Lutheran or Calvmistic, have been revised. The only 
examples that border on revision are the Augsburg Yar- 
iata and the Formula Concordise. The first was only the 
individual work of Melanchthon, who wished to introduce 
synergism into the Lutheran monergism, and not that of a 
church demanding it ; and the last claimed to be, and ac- 
tually was, a closely reasoned and logical development of 
the Augsburg Confession — the only instance that we recall 
in which revision resulted in a stricter orthodoxy. The 
reduction of the Forty-two Articles of Edward the Sixth 
to the Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth, cannot be called 
a revision. The attempt of the Remonstrants to Armini- 
anize the Heidelberg and Belgic Confessions was a fail- 
ure, and resulted in the Five Articles of the new creed. 

These facts go to show that revision, speaking generally, 
means the alteration of doctrinal statements by injecting 
into them more or less of foreign elements not properly 
belonging to them, in order to meet a change of views in 
a larger or smaller part of the denomination. By this 
method, Calvinism, or Arminianism, or Socinianism, or 
any creed whatever, becomes mixed instead of pure; a 
combination of dissimilar materials, instead of a simple 
uncompounded unity. This is the destruction of that self- 
consistence which is the necessary constituent of true 
science, and indispensable to permanent power and in- 
fluence. The purest and most unmixed Socinianism, Ar- 
minianism, Lutheranism, or Calvinism, is the strongest in 
the long run. 

While the author contends that such is the nature and 
tendency of creed -revision, he believes that many of those 



vi 



PKEFACE 



who are advocating a revision of the Westminster Stand- 
ards have no desire to weaken their statements or their 
influence. The distinction between doctrines and per- 
sons, projects and their advocates, is a valid one. One 
may have no confidence in a doctrine or project, and yet 
may have confidence in a particular advocate of it, because 
a person may be different in his spirit and intention from 
the nature and tendency of his doctrine or project, while 
this is a fixed quantity. Coleridge, in a conversation with 
a Unitarian friend, said : " I make the greatest difference 
between ans and isms. I should deal insincerely with 
you, if I said that I thought Unitarianism is Christianity ; 
but God forbid that I should doubt that you and many 
other Unitarians are in a practical sense very good Chris- 
tians." ("Table Talk," April 4, 1832.) When the opponent 
of revision asserts that revision is anti-Calvinistic in its 
logic and tendency, he does not assert that all of its advo- 
cates are anti-Calvinists. The writer believes that the 
natural effect of the proposed changes in the Confession, 
especially those of the radical wing, will be to weaken and 
break down the Calvinistic system contained in it, and 
endeavors to prove it ; but he does not believe or say that 
this is the desire and intention of all who urge them. 

The spirit of revision, it is said, is " in the air," and 
this is assigned as a reason why it should be stimulated 
and strengthened. This would also be a reason for the 
increase of malaria. It is undoubtedly true that the de- 
sire to revise the Calvinistic creed is pervading Pan- 
Presbyterianism to a degree not imagined at first. If it 
continues to increase, there can be little doubt that the 
historical Calvinism will be considerably modified; and 
doctrinal modification is an inclined plane. In an age of 
materialism in philosophy, and universalism in religion, 
when the Calvinistic type of doctrine is more violently 



PREFACE 



Vll 



opposed than any other of the evangelical creeds, because 
of its firm and uncompromising nature, the Presbyterian 
Church should not revise the creed from which it has de- 
rived its past solidarity and power, but should reaffirm it ; 
and non-revision is reaffirmation. 

The aim of the author is twofold : first, to explain some 
of the more difficult points in Calvinism, and thereby 
promote the reaffirmation of the Westminster Standards 
pure and simple, precisely as they were adopted by both 
schools in the reunion of 1870, instead of the revision of 
them as now proposed, which had it been urged at that 
time would have been fatal to the cause of reunion ; and 
secondly, to justify and defend before the human under- 
standing, that intellectual and powerful system of theol- 
ogy which had its origin in the Biblical studies and per- 
sonal experience of the two most comprehensive and 
scientific theologians of Christendom, Aurelius Augus- 
tine and John Calvin. 



New York, February, 1893. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Inexpediency op the Revision of the Westminster Con- 
fession, . . . 1 

Objections to the Revision of the Westminster, Con- 
fession, . . . 13 

Are there Doctrinal Errors in the Westminster Con- 
fession ? 18 

The Westminster Standards and the Universal Offer 
of Mercy, 24 

The Meaning and Value of the Doctrine of Decrees, . 30 

Preterition Necessary to the Sovereignty of God in 
Election, . . . 72 

Preterition and the Lopsided View of the Divine De- 
cree, 78 

The Double Predestination to Holiness and Sin, . . 88 

Common and Special Grace, 96 

The True Proportion in a Creed between the Univer- 
sal and the Special Love of God, 107 

Infant Salvation as Related to Original Sin, . . .112 

The Westminster Standards and the " Larger Hope," . 121 

The Westminster Affirmation of the Original Inerrancy 
of the Scriptures, 137 

Calvinism and the Bible, 151 

Denominational Honesty and Honor, 158 



CALVINISM : PUKE AND MIXED 

A DEFENCE 

OF THE 

WESTMINSTER STANDARDS. 



i. 

INEXPEDIENCY OF THE REVISION OF THE WESTMINSTER 
CONFESSION. 1 

The question whether the Westminster Confession 
shall be revised, has been referred to the whole Church 
represented by the presbyteries. The common sentiment 
of the denomination must determine the matter. The 
expression of opinion during the few months prior to the 
presbyterial action is, therefore, of consequence. It is 
desirable that it should be a full expression of all varieties 
of views, and as a contribution towards it, we purpose 
to assign some reasons why the revision of the Confession 
is not expedient. 

1. In the first place it is inexpedient, because in its ex- 
isting form as drawn up by the Westminster Assembly it 
has met, and well met, all the needs of the Church for the 
past two centuries. The Presbyterian Church in the 
United States since 1700 has passed through a varied and 
sometimes difficult experience. The controversies in the 



1 New York Evangelist, September 5, 1889. 



2 



CALVINISM : 



beginning between the Old and New Lights, and still 
more the vehement disputes that resulted in the division 
of the Church in 1837, have tried the common symbol as 
severely as it is ever likely to be. But through them all 
both theological divisions were content with the Confes- 
sion and Catechisms as they stood, and both alike claimed 
to be true to them. Neither party demanded a revision 
on any doctrinal points ; and both alike found in them a 
satisfactory expression of their faith. What is there in 
the Presbyterian Church of to-day that necessitates any 
different statement of the doctrine of decrees, of atone- 
ment, of regeneration, or of punishment, from that ac- 
cepted by the Presbyterian Church of 1837, or 1789 ? Are 
the statements upon these points any more liable to mis- 
conception or misrepresentation by non-Calvinists now 
than they were fifty or a hundred years ago ? Are there 
any more "weak consciences" requiring softening expla- 
nations and relaxing clauses in the Church of to-day than 
in former periods? And with reference to the allowable 
differences of theological opinion within the Presbyterian 
Church, is not a creed that was adopted and defended by 
Charles llodge and Albert Barnes sufficiently broad to 
include all who are really Calvinistic and Presbyterian in 
belief ? What is there, we repeat, in the condition of the 
Presbyterian Church of to-day that makes the old Con- 
fession of the past two hundred years inadequate as a doc- 
trinal Standard ? All the past successes and victories of 
Presbvterianism have been accomplished under it. Suc- 
cess in the past is guaranty for success in the future. Is 
it not better for the Church to work on the very same old 
base, in the very same straight line 1 

2. Revision is inexpedient, because the reunion of the 
two divisions of the Church was founded upon the Con- 
fession as it now stands. A proposition to unite the two 



PURE AND MIXED 



3 



branches of Presbyterianism by first revising the West- 
minster documents would have failed, because in the revi- 
sion individual and party preferences would have shown 
themselves. But when the Standards pure and simple 
were laid down as the only terms of union, the whole mass 
of Presbyterians flowed together. It is to be feared that if 
a revision of the Confession should take place, there will be 
a dissatisfied portion of the Church who will prefer to re- 
main upon the historic foundation ; that the existing har- 
mony will be disturbed ; and that the proposed measures 
for union with other Presbyterian bodies will fall through. 

3. Revision is inexpedient, because it will introduce 
new difficulties. The explanations will need to be ex- 
plained. The revision that is called for is said by its 
more conservative advocates, not to be an alteration of 
the doctrine of the Confession, but an explanation only. 
Now good and sufficient explanations of a creed require 
more space than can be afforded in a concise symbol in- 
tended for use in inducting officers and members. Such 
full and careful explanations have been made all along 
from the beginning, and the Presbyterian Board of Pub- 
lication has issued a large and valuable library of them. 
No one need be in any doubt respecting the meaning of 
the Confession who will carefully peruse one or more of 
them. He who is not satisfied with the Westminster doc- 
trine as so explained, will not be satisfied with it at all. 
But if brief explanations are inserted into the Confession 
itself, their brevity will inevitably expose them to mis- 
understanding and misconception. Take an illustration. 
An able minister and divine, whose Calvinism is unim- 
peachable, suggests that Confession iii. 3 shall read : 
" By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his 
glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto ever- 
lasting life, and others foreordained [for their sins] to 



4 



CALVINISM I 



everlasting death." If the clause in brackets is inserted 
without further explanation, the article might fairly and 
naturally be understood to teach that the reason why God 
passes by a sinner in the bestowment of regenerating 
grace is the sinner's sin. But St. Paul expressly says that 
the sinner's sin is not the cause of his non-election to re- 
generation. " The children being not yet born, neither 
having done any good or evil, it was said, The elder 
shall serve the younger. Esau have I hated" (Rom. 9: 
11-13). The reason for the difference between the elect 
and non-elect is not the holiness or the sin of either of 
them, but God's sovereign good pleasure. " He hath 
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will 
he hardeneth" (Horn. 9 : IS). An explanation like this, 
without further explanation such as the proposer would 
undoubtedly make, would not only contradict Scripture, 
but change the Calvinistic doctrine into the Arminian. 
The reason for non-election would no longer be secret and 
sovereign, but known and conditional. All this liability 
to misconstruction is avoided by the Confession itself as 
it now stands. For in Confession iii. 7, after saying that 
the " passing by " in the bestowment of regenerating 
grace is an act of God's sovereign pleasure, "whereby lie 
extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth," it then 
adds that "the ordaining to dishonor and wrath" is "for 
sin." Sin is here represented as the reason for the judi- 
cial act of punishing, but not for the sovereign act of not 
regenerating. The only reason for the latter, our Lord 
gives in his, " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in 
thy sight." 

Other illustrations might be given of the difficulty of 
avoiding misconception when a systematic creed is sought 
to be explained, particularly in its difficult points, by the 
brief interpolation of words and clauses. The method is 



PURE AND MIXED 



5 



too short. More space is required than can be spared. 
It is better, therefore, to let a carefully constructed and 
concisely phrased creed like the Westminster stand ex- 
actly as it was drawn up by the sixty-nine commissioners, 
in the five weekly sessions for nearly nine years, and have 
it explained, qualified, and defended in published trea- 
tises, in sermons, and especially in catechetical lectures. 
Had the ministry been as faithful as it should in years 
past in catechetical instruction, there would be little dif- 
ficulty in understanding the "Westminster creed. The 
remedy needed is in this direction, not in that of a re- 
vision. 

4. Revision is inexpedient, because there is no end to 
the process. It is like the letting out of water. The doc- 
trine of the divine decrees is the particular one selected 
by the presbytery whose request has brought the subject 
of revision before the General Assembly. But this doc- 
trine runs entirely through the Westminster documents, 
so that if changes were made merely in the third chapter 
of the Confession, it would be wholly out of harmony 
with the remainder. Effectual calling, regeneration, per- 
severance of the saints, are all linked in with the diviue 
decree. The most cursory perusal will show that a revi- 
sion of the Confession on this one subject would amount 
to an entire recasting of the creed. 

5. Revision is inexpedient, because it may abridge the 
liberty of interpretation now afforded by the Confession. 
As an example of the variety in explanation admitted by 
the creed as it now stands, take the statement that " God 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the beginning, 
created or made from nothing the world, and all things 
therein, in the space of six days." He who holds the 
patristic view that the days of Genesis were periods, and 
he who holds the modern opinion that the days were 



6 



CALVINISM : 



solar, can subscribe to the Westminster statement. But 
if revised in the interest of either view, the subscriber is 
shut up to it alone. Another example is found in the 
statement respecting the guilt of Adam's sin. The advo- 
cate of natural union, or of representative union, or of 
both in combination, can find a foothold, provided only 
that he holds to the penal nature of the first sin. An- 
other instance is the article concerning " elect infants." 
As the tenet was formulated by the Assembly, it has 
been understood to mean, (a) that all infants dying in 
infancy are elected as a class, some being saved by cov- 
enanted mercy, and some by uncovenanted mercy ; (b) 
that all infants dying in infancy are elected as a class — all 
alike, those within the Church and those outside of it, 
being saved by divine mercy, nothing being said of the 
covenant ; (c) that dying infants are elected as individ- 
uals, some being elect, and some non-elect. Probably 
each of these opinions had its representatives in the 
Assembly, and hence the indefinite form of the state- 
ment. The writer regards the first-mentioned view as 
best supported by Scripture and the analogy of faith ; 
but there are many who advocate the second view, and 
perhaps there may be some who hold the third. The 
liberty of opinion now conceded by the Confession on a 
subject respecting which the Scripture data are few, 
would be ill-exchanged for a statement that would admit 
of but one interpretation. 

6. Revision is inexpedient, because the Westminster 
Confession, as it now reads, is a sufficiently broad and 
liberal creed. We do not say that it is sufficiently broad 
and liberal for every man and every denomination ; but 
it is as broad and liberal for a Calvinist as any Calvinist 
should desire. For whoever professes Calvinism, professes 
a precise form of doctrine. He expects to keep within 



PUKE AND MIXED 



7 



definite metes and bounds ; he is not one of those religion- 
ists who start from no premises, and come to no con- 
clusions, and hold no tenets. The Presbyterian Church 
is a Calvinistic Church. It will be the beginning of its 
decline, as it already has been of some Calvinistic denom- 
inations, when it begins to swerve from this dogmatic 
position. It must therefore be distinguished among the 
Churches for doctrinal consistency, comprehensiveness, 
and firmness. But inside of the metes and bounds es- 
tablished by divine revelation, and to which it has vol- 
untarily confined itself, it has a liberty that is as large 
as the kingdom of God. It cannot get outside of that 
kingdom, and should not desire to. But within it, it is 
as free to career as a ship in the ocean, as an eagle in the 
air. Yet the ship cannot sail beyond the ocean, nor the 
eagle fly beyond the sky. Liberty within the immeasura- 
ble bounds and limits of God's truth, is the only true 
liberty. All else is license. The Westminster Con- 
fession, exactly as it now reads, has been the creed of as 
free and enlarged intellects as ever Jived on earth. The 
substance of it was the strong and fertile root of the two 
freest movements in modern history : that of the Protes- 
tant Reformation and that of Republican Government. 
No Presbyterian should complain that the creed of his 
Church is narrow and stifling. 

And here we notice an objection urged against the 
Confession relative to the tenet of limited redemption. 
It is said that it is not sufficiently broad and liberal in 
announcing the boundless compassion of God towards all 
men indiscriminately, and in inviting all men without 
exception to cast themselves upon it. But read and 
ponder the following statements : 

" Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doc- 
trine whereof is to be preached in season and out of 



8 



CALVINISM : 



season by every minister of the gospel, as well as that 
of faith in Christ. It is every man's duty to endeavor to 
repent of his particular sins, particularly. Every man is 
bound to make private confession of his sins to God, 
praying for the pardon thereof, upon which, and the 
forsaking of them, he shall find mercy. Prayer, with 
thanksgiving, being one special part of religious worship, 
is by God required of all men. Praj'er is to be made for 
all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter, but not 
for the dead. God is to be worshipped everywhere in 
spirit and in truth, and in secret each one by himself. 
God in his Word, by a positive moral commandment, binds 
all men in all ages. The grace of God is manifested in the 
second covenant, in that he freely provideth and offer- 
eth to sinners a mediator, and life and salvation in him. 
The ministry of the gospel testifies that whosoever be- 
lieves in Christ shall be saved, and excludes none that 
will come unto him. God is able to search the heart, 
hear the requests, pardon the sins, and fulfil the desires, 
of all." 

These declarations, scattered broadcast through the 
Westminster Confession and Catechisms, teach the uni- 
versality of the Gospel, except no human creature from 
the offer of it, and exclude no human creature from its 
benefits. Their consistency with the doctrine of election 
is assumed, but not explained, in the Confession of Faith. 
And no revision of this by the mere interpolation of a few 
words or clauses, will make the subject any clearer, or 
stop all objections. 

7. Revision is inexpedient, because the Westminster 
Standards already make full provision for those ex- 
ceptional cases, on account of which revision is claimed 
by its advocates to be needed. It is said that there are 
some true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who cannot 



PURE AND MIXED 



9 



adopt all the Westminster statements, who yet should not 
be, and actually are not, excluded from the Presbyterian 
Church ; that there are tender consciences of good men, 
whose scruples are to be respected. But these cases are 
referred by the Form of Government to the church 
session, and power is given to it to receive into member- 
ship any person who trusts in the blood of Christ for the 
remission of sin, although his doctrinal knowledge and 
belief may be unsatisfactory on some points. He may 
stumble at predestination, but if with the publican he 
cries " God be merciful to me a sinner," he has the root 
of the matter in him, and is a regenerate child of God. 
But why should the whole Presbyterian Church revise its 
entire creed, so as to make it fit these exceptional cases ? 
Why should the mountain go to Mohammed ? Why 
should a genuine but deficient evangelical knowledge and 
experience be set up as the type of doctrine for the whole 
denomination ? These " babes in Christ" need the educa- 
tion of the full and complete system of truth, and should 
gradually be led up to it, instead of bringing the system 
down to their level. There is sometimes a misconception 
at this point. We have seen it stated that the member- 
ship of the Presbyterian Church is not required or ex- 
pected to hold the same doctrine with the officers ; that 
the pastor, elders, and deacons must accept the Confession 
of Faith " as containing the system of doctrine taught in 
the Holy Scriptures," but that the congregation need not. 
But this error arises from confounding the toleration of a 
deficiency with the endorsement of it. Because a church 
session tolerates in a particular person, w T ho gives evidence 
of faith in Christ, an error respecting foreordination, or 
even some abstruse point in the trinity, or the incarna- 
tion, it does not thereby endorse the error. It does not 
sanction his opinion on these subjects, but only endures 



10 



CALVINISM : 



it, in view of his religious experience on the vital points 
of faith and repentance, and with the hope that his sub- 
sequent growth in knowledge will bring him to the final 
rejection of it. The Presbyterian Church tolerates thea- 
tre-going in some of its members : that is to say, it does 
not discipline them for it. But it does not formally 
approve of and sanction theatre-going. A proposition to 
revise the Confession by inserting a clause to this effect, 
in order to meet the wishes and practice of theatre-go- 
ing church -members, would be voted down by the pres- 
byteries. 

The position that the officers of a church may have one 
creed, and the membership another, is untenable. Xo 
church could live and thrive upon it. A Trinitarian 
clergy preaching to an Arian or Socinian membership, 
would preach to unwilling hearers. And although the 
difference is not so great and so vital, yet a Calvinistic 
clergy preaching to an Arminian membership, or an 
Arminian clergy to a Calvinistic membership, would on 
some points find unsympathetic auditors. Pastor and 
people, officers and members, must be homogeneous in 
doctrine, in order to a vigorous church-life. If, there- 
fore, a certain class of members is received into a church, 
who do not on all points agree with the Church creed, 
this is not to be understood as giving the members gener- 
ally a liberty to depart from the Church creed, or to be a 
reason for revising it. 1 

The case is different with the officers of the church. 



1 The question whether there shall he a short creed to he used in the 
admission of members into the Church, is entirely distinct from that 
Ox revision. Such a creed ought not, of course, to contain anything 
contradictory to the larger creed which makes a part of the constitution 
of the Church, and is used in the induction of ministers, elders, and 
theological professors. 



PURE AND MIXED 



.11 



There is no exceptional class in this instance. Neither 
the session nor the presbytery have any authority to dis- 
pense with the acceptance of any part of the Confession 
of Faith, when a pastor, elder, or deacon is inducted into 
office. There is no toleration of defective views provided 
for, when those who are to teach and rule the Church are 
put into the ministry. And this for the good reason that 
ministers and elders are expected to be so well indoctrin- 
ated, that they are " apt to teach " and competent to 
" rule well." Some propose " loose subscription " as a 
remedy, when candidates of lax or unsettled views present 
themselves for licensure and ordination. This is demor- 
alizing, and kills all simplicity and godly sincerity. Bet- 
ter a thousand times for a denomination to alter its creed, 
than to allow its ministry to " palter with words in a 
double meaning;" than to permit an Arian subscription 
to the Nicene Symbol, an Arminian subscription to the 
Westminster Confession, a Calvin istic subscription to 
the Articles of Wesley, a Restorationist subscription to 
the doctrine of endless punishment. 

For these reasons, it seems to us that the proposed re- 
vision of the Westminster Confession is not wise or ex- 
pedient. The revision of a denominational creed is a rare 
occurrence in ecclesiastical history. Commonly a denom- 
ination remains from first to last upon the base that was 
laid for it in the beginning bv its fathers and founders. 
And when revision does occur, it is seldom in the direc- 
tion of fulness and precision. Usually the alteration is 
in favor of vague and looser statements. Even slight 
changes are apt to be followed by greater ones. The dis- 
position to revise and alter, needs watching. In an age 
when the general drift of the un regenerate world is away 
from the strong statements of the Hebrew prophets, of 
Christ and his inspired Apostles, it is of the utmost im- 



12 



CALVINISM : 



portance that the regenerate Church, in all its denomina- 
tions, should stand firm in the old paths, and hold fast to 
that " Word of God which is sharper than a two-edged 
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
spirit." 



PURE AND MIXED 



13 



II. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE REVISION OF THE WESTMINSTER 
CONFESSION. 1 

The first question sent down to the presbyteries is the 
most important of the two; namely, Whether a revision of 
the Confession is desired. If this is answered in the neg- 
ative, it will mean that the Presbyterian Church of the 
present day is satisfied with its ancestral faith, as formu- 
lated in its Standards, and accords with the Church of the 
past in this respect. It will be a formal and positive re- 
affirmation .of the historic Calvinism, at a time when this 
system of doctrine is charged with being unscriptural, er- 
roneous, and antiquated by modern theological progress. 
If it be answered in the affirmative, it will mean that the 
Church of the present day is more or less dissatisfied with 
the doctrines of the Westminster Assembly, and is no 
longer willing to endorse and preach them as that body of 
divines defined and stated them. Revision is alteration, 
more or less. The object is not merely to make sure that 
the creed just as it stands is understood ; but to modify it 
either in its structural plan, its component parts, its em- 
phasis, or its general perspective. The second question, 
How much revision is desired ? is comparatively of less 
consequence, because it is the first question alone that 
decides the vital point, whether the Presbyterian Church 

1 New York Presbytery, November 20, 1889 ; Northwestern Presby- 
terian, November 23, 1889. 



14 



CALVINISM : 



has drifted at all from the old anchorage. For this rea- 
son," we present in a brief form the following objections 
to the revision of the Westminster Confession : 

1. Revision is objectionable, because the project origin- 
ated in too small a fraction of the Church. Only fifteen 
presbyteries out of two hundred and two united in over- 
turing the Assembly in its favor. The remaining one 
hundred and eighty-seven will have to be argued and per- 
suaded into it. But so important a step as the revision of 
the doctrinal basis of a denomination should begin in a 
general uprising of the whole body, and be the spontane- 
ous and strongly expressed desire of the great majority of 
its members. The revision of secondary matters, like the 
form of government and discipline, does not require this 
in the same degree. As the case now stands, fifteen 
presbyteries have asked one hundred and eighty-seven 
presbyteries if they do not want to amend the Confes- 
sion. There should have been a far wider dissatisfac- 
tion w T ith the Standards than this indicates, to initiate re- 
vision. 

2. Revision is objectionable, because the Confession is a 
correct statement of " the system of doctrine contained in 
the Scriptures." The system meant in this phrase is uni- 
versally known as the Calvinistic ; not as resting upon the 
authority of Calvin, but as a convenient designation of 
that interpretation of Scripture which is common to Au- 
gustine, Calvin, the Reformed theologians, and the "West- 
minster divines. The term "evangelical" does not define 
it, because there are several evangelical systems, but only 
one Calvinistic. The systems of Arminius, of Wesley, 
and of the Later-Lutherans, as well as that of Calvin, are 
alike evangelical, in distinction from anti-evangelical sys- 
tems like Socinianism and Deism. They are all alike 
derived from the Bible, and contain the doctrines of the 



PURE AND MIXED 



15 



trinity, tho incarnation, the apostasy, and the redemption. 
But the Calvinistic interpretation of Scripture, which is 
the one formulated in the Westminster Standards, differs 
from these other "evangelical" systems, in teaching un- 
conditional election and pretention, instead of conditional ; 
limited redemption (not atonement) instead of unlimited; 
regeneration wholly by the Holy Spirit instead of partly ; 
the total inability of the sinner instead of partial. The 
Calvinistic system, as thus discriminated from the other 
" evangelical " systems, has been adopted by American 
Presbyterians for two centuries. Neither Old Lights, nor 
New Lights ; neither Old School, nor New School ; have 
demanded that these tenets which distinguish Calvinism 
from Arminianism should be eliminated from the creed. 
They were accepted with equal sincerity by both branches 
of the Church in the reunion of 1870, and there is no rea- 
son for altering the formulas that were satisfactory then, 
unless the belief of the Church has altered in regard to 
these distinctive points of Calvinism. 

3. The revision of the Confession is objectionable, be- 
cause the principal amendments proposed by its advocates 
will introduce error into it, so that it will no longer be 
" the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures." 
The four following alterations are urged upon the Church : 
(a) To strike out the doctrine of the sovereignty of God 
in pretention, leaving the doctrine of election unlimited 
and universal, (b) To retain pretention, but assign as 
the reason for it the sin of the non-elect, (c) To strike 
out the statement that the number of the elect and non- 
elect is "so certain and definite, that it cannot be increased 
or diminished" by "angels and men." (d) To strike out 
the statement that no man who rejects the " Christian re- 
ligion," or the evangelical method of salvation, can be 
saved by the legal method of living " according to the 



16 



CALVINISM : 



light of nature," or some system of morality which he 
" professes." If these changes are made, the Westminster 
Standards will no longer contain a class of truths that are 
plainly taught in Scripture, and will cease to be that "sys- 
tem of doctrine " which their authors had in mind, and to 
which the present generation of ministers and elders have 
subscribed like their fathers before them. 

4. Revision is objectionable, because it will be a conces- 
sion to the enemies of the Standards that their aspersions 
of them are true. The charges that have been made by 
the opponents of them from time immemorial are, that 
Calvinism represents God as a tyrannical sovereign who 
is destitute of love and mercy for any but an elect few, 
that it attributes to man the depravity of devils, deprives 
him of moral freedom, and subjects him to the arbitrary 
cruelty of a Being who creates some men in order to damn 
them. A few ministers and elders within the Presbyte- 
rian Church endorse these allegations ; and many assert 
that the Confession contains no universal offer of salva- 
tion, teaches that none of the heathen are saved, and that 
some infants are non-elect and lost. The great reason 
assigned by such Presbyterians for revising the Standards 
is, that they inculcate unscriptural and offensive doctrines 
that cannot be believed or preached. But this is to con- 
cede that all preceding Presbyterians have been grossly 
mistaken in denying that the Confession contains such 
doctrines, either directly or by implication. It is an 
acknowledgment that one of the most carefully drawn 
and important of all the Reformed symbols, inculcates in 
a latent form some of the most repulsive tenets conceiv- 
able by the human mind. Presbyterians of all schools 
have hitherto met this calumny on their creed by contra- 
dicting it, and trying the issue by close reasoning and de- 
bate. Revision proposes, in the legal phrase, to give a 



PURE AND MIXED 



17 



cognovit, admit the charge, and alter the standards to suit 
the enemy who made it. 

5. Revision is objectionable, because it will reopen the 
old discussions and controversies upon the difficult doc- 
trines, without resulting in any better definitions of them 
than they already have in the Church. On the contrary, 
the great variety of changes that will be urged, from the 
very conservative to the very radical, will introduce a pe- 
riod of speculative dispute and disagreement that will 
seriously impair the existing harmony of the denomina- 
tion, and divert its attention from the great practical in- 
terests of Christ's kingdom in which it is now engaged. 

These five objections, it seems to us, are conclusive 
reasons why the Presbyterian Church should not alter, 
but reaffirm the doctrines of the Westminster Standards, 
and continue to teach and defend them as they have been 
by all the past generations of Presbyterians. 
2 



18 



CALVINISM : 



III. 

ARE THERE DOCTRINAL ERRORS IN THE WESTMINSTER 

CONFESSION ? 1 

The strongest reason presented for the revision of the 
Westminster Confession is the allegation that the phrase- 
ology of some of its sections contains serious error, or is 
liable to be understood as containing it. Is this true ? 
In order to answer this question, we shall examine a few 
of the principal sections which are asserted to be errone- 
ous either in their direct teaching or in their implication. 

1. Confession iii. 3 asserts that " By the decree of God, 
for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels 
are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore- 
ordained to everlasting death." It is contended that this 
section teaches, or is liable to be understood as teaching, 
that the decree of God in election and reprobation has no 
connection with sin and the fall of man, but that God by 
an arbitrary decree, wholly irrespective of sin, creates 
some men in order to save them, and some men in order 
to damn them. To correct this alleged error, or liability 
of interpretation, several advocates of revision propose to 
insert the clause, " On account of their sins," to qualify 
the clause, " Foreordained to everlasting death ; " and 
one advocate of revision proposes to strike out the entire 
section concerning election and reprobation. 

We maintain that the Confession neither teaches the 



1 Philadelphia Presbyterian, October 19, 1889. 



PURE AND MIXED 



19 



error aforesaid, nor is fairly liable to be understood to 
teach it. According to Confession iii. 6, both the elect 
and non-elect are " fallen in Adam," and are thereby in a 
common guilty state of sin. The former are delivered 
out of sin by regenerating grace, and the latter are left in 
sin. Why are the latter left in sin ? Because " God so 
pleased," is the reason given by the Confession. " On 
account of their sins," is the reason which the reviser 
would insert into the Confession. But this, surely, can- 
not be the reason why God leaves a sinner in his sin. I 
see two suicides who have flung themselves into the 
water. I rescue one of them, and the other I let drown. 
They are both alike in the water, and by their own free 
agency. But his being in the water, is not the reason 
why I do not rescue the one whom I let drown. I have 
some other reason. It may be a good one or a bad one. 
But whatever it be, it certainly is not because the man is 
in the water. Similarly God does not leave a sinner in his 
Own voluntary and loved sin because he is in sin. He 
has some other reason why he makes this discrimination 
between two persons, both of whom are in sin, neither of 
whom has any claim upon his mercy, and neither of 
whom is more deserving of election and regeneration than 
the other. God's reason, in this case, we know must be 
a good one. But it is a secret with himself. The only 
answer to the inquiry, "Why didst thou elect and regen- 
erate Saul of Tarsus, and didst not elect and regenerate 
Judas Iscariot ? " is, " Because it seemed good in my 
sight." 

The allegation that there is error in this section of the 
Confession arises from misunderstanding the meaning of 
the clause, "Foreordained to everlasting death." It is 
the omission to regenerate, not the punishment of sin, that 
is intended by it. When God " foreordains " a sinner 



20 



CALVINISM : 



" to everlasting death," lie decides to leave him in the sin 
which deserves everlasting death and results in it. The 
non-elect sinner has experienced the operation of common 
grace. It is an error to say that God shows no kind or 
degree of mercy to the non-elect. But he has resisted 
and defeated it. God decides to proceed no further with 
him by the bestowment of that special grace which regen- 
erates, and " makes willing in the day of God's power." 
The elect sinner has also experienced, resisted, and de- 
feated common grace. God decides to proceed further 
with him, by effectual calling and regeneration. The par- 
ticular question, therefore, in this paragraph of the Con- 
fession is, " AVhy does God leave a sinner to his own wilful 
free agency \ " and not, " Why does God punish him for 
it?" The answer to the first question is, "Because of 
his sovereign good pleasure." The answer to the second 
is, " Because of the ill-desert of sin." The reason why 
God omits to take the second step, and exert a yet higher 
degree of grace after his first step in exerting a lower de- 
gree has been thwarted by the resistance of the sinner, is 
entirely different from the reason why he inflicts retribu- 
tion upon the sinner's sin. This is more fully explained 
in the seventh section of the third chapter, which should 
always be read in connection with the third. Here, the 
reason for God's " passing by," or omitting to regenerate 
a sinner, is found in " the unsearchable counsel of his own 
will whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he 
pleaseth." This first negative part of reprobation, which 
is properly called " pretention," is not qualified by the 
clause, " for their sin," as the correct punctuation in the 
Board's edition shows. This latter clause qualifies only 
the sentence, " And to ordain them to dishonor and 
wrath." Sinners are punished "for their sin," but sin is 
not the reason why God does not regenerate them. If sin 



PURE AND MIXED 



21 



were the reason for non-election, holiness, logically, would 
be the reason for election. If some men are not regen- 
erated because they are unbelieving, others would be re- 
generated because they are believing. This is the Ar- 
minian doctrine, not the Calvinistic ; and this is the 
reason why the Westminster Assembly did not qualify the 
words, " pass by," by the proposed clause, " for their 
sins," but left " passing by," or " foreordination to ever- 
lasting death," to be a purely sovereign act according to 
" the good pleasure " of God. 

2. Confession iii. 4 teaches that " the angels and men 
thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and 
unchangeably designed ; and their number is so certain 
and definite that it cannot be either increased or dimin- 
ished." One advocate of revision proposes that this 
whole section be struck out of the Standards, because it 
" is not a scriptural form of expression ; it is mislead- 
ing." 

What is the meaning of this section ? " Increased or 
diminished " by whom f What is the ellipsis intended to 
be supplied by the framers of the statement ? Plainly 
they meant that the number of the elect and non-elect 
cannot be increased or diminished by the "angels and 
men " spoken of in the connection : that is, by any finite 
power. Neither the human will, nor the angelic, can de- 
termine the number of God's elect and non-elect, because 
this depends wholly upon " the counsel of his own will." 
Of course, the Assembly did not mean to say that God 
could not have made the number of his elect larger or 
smaller, if " the counsel of his own will " had so deter- 
mined. Probably no advocate of revision understands 
the Confession to teach this. But will any advocate of it 
say that the number of the regenerate and saved can be 
made greater or less by the decision and action of either 



22 



CALVINISM : 



the unregenerate world, or the regenerate church ? This 
would contradict the statement of St. John, that the elect 
" sons of God are born not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It would also 
contradict the corresponding statement in the Confession 
which teaches that " in effectual calling man is altogether 
passive, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy 
Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer the call, and to 
embrace the grace offered and conveyed by it " (Confession 
x. 2). This fourth section of the third chapter is simply 
another way of teaching the common doctrine, running 
all through the Standards, that the sinful will is in bond- 
age to sin, and cannot regenerate itself, and that conse- 
quently the number of the regenerate depends wholly 
upon the will and decision of God. 

3. Confession x. 4 asserts that " men not professing the 
Christian religion cannot be saved in any other way what- 
soever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives ac- 
cording to the light of nature, and the law of that relio-- 
ion they do profess." This is alleged to be erroneous 
by an advocate of revision, because " every promise and 
every warning of God is addressed to man as a free agent, 
and not as one who cannot be saved." 

Who are the persons " not professing the Christian re- 
ligion ? " They are those who reject it, either formally, 
or in their spirit and disposition. The class here spoken 
of are the legalists of every variety, who repudiate salva- 
tion through Christ's blood and righteousness, and rely 
upon "diligently framing their lives according to the light 
of nature, and the law of that religion which they do pro- 
fess" — which is some other than "the Christian religion," 
which they do not " profess," but contemn. The Chris- 
tian religion is evangelical religion, and this they dislike. 
They expect to be saved by morality and personal virtue, 



PUKE AND MIXED 



23 



and not by faith in the vicarious atonement of Jesus 
Christ. 

The doctrine then, in this section is, in brief, that no 
man can be saved by good works ; by any endeavors how- 
ever " diligent " to obey the written law of the decalogue, 
as the Christian legalist does, or the unwritten law of 
conscience, as the heathen legalist does. Now concern- 
ing this class of persons St. Paul explicitly says that 
" they cannot be saved." " By the deeds of the law shall 
no flesh be justified." St. Peter says the same. "There 
is no other name under heaven given among men, where- 
by we must be saved." 

There is nothing in this section that denies the possi- 
bility of the salvation of any sinner on earth who feels 
his sin, and trusts in the sacrifice of Christ in case he 
lias heard of it, or would trust in it if he should hear of 
it. It does not teach that no heathen is or can be saved. 
This fourth section, so often misunderstood and misrepre- 
sented, is aimed at the self-righteous moralist, whether in 
Christendom or Heathendom, who has no sorrow for sin, 
feels no need of God's mercy as manifested in Christ, and 
has no disposition to cast himself upon it, but claims the 
rewards of eternity on the ground of personal character 
and obedience to " the light of nature " and the maxims 
of morality. It is only a bold and strong assertion of 
the great truth, that no sinner can be saved by his most 
strenuous endeavors to keep the moral law. It is not 
strange, therefore, that this section closes with the affir- 
mation that "to assert and maintain the contrary is very 
pernicious and to be detested." 

If this is the correct explanation of these three sections 
of the Confession, it is evident that they neither teach 
nor imply error, and therefore do not need any revision. 



•24 



CALVINISM : 



IT. 

THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS AND THE UNIVERSAL 
OEFER OF 3IERCY. 1 

The Westminster Standards are now meeting an attack 
from some who have adopted them as their religions 
creed. Formerly the onset came from the enemy on the 
outside, now it comes from within the Church. \Vhen so 
many presbyterians are objecting to the Confession as 
containing t; offensive articles that wound the consciences 
of tens of thousands of loyal and orthodox presbyterians,''" 
it is proper for an ordinary presbyterian to say a good 
word for the time-honored symbol which has been sub- 
scribed by the present generation of ministers and elders, 
and was dear to all the former generations. ^lay it not 
be that these "'offensive articles''* are not in the Stand- 
ards, and that the advocates of revision, in order to find a 
sufficient reason for their project, are inventing and fight- 
ing men of straw \ Let lis look at one of these alleged 
offences. 

It is strenuously contended that the Standards contain 
no declaration of the love of God towards all men, but 
limit it to the elect ; that they make no universal offer of 
salvation, but confine it to a part of mankind. 

The following declaration is found in Confession ii. 1. 
'•'There is but one only living and true God, who is most 
loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in 



1 New Tork Observer, November 14, 1889. 



PURE AND MIXED 



25 



goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and 
sin, the re warder of them that diligently seek him/' Of 
whom speaketh the Confession this? of the God of the 
elect only ? or of the God of every man ? Is he the God 
of the elect only ? Is he not also of the non-elect ? Is 
this description of the gracious nature and attributes of 
God intended to be restricted to a part of mankind ? Is 
not God as thus delineated the Creator and Father of 
every man without exception ? Can it be supposed that 
the authors of this statement meant to be understood to 
say that God is not such a being for all men, but only for 
some ? If this section does not teach the unlimited love 
and compassion of God towards all men as men, as his 
creatures, it teaches nothing. 

The following declaration is found in Confession xv. 1, 
Larger Catechism, 159. " Repentance unto life is an 
evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof is to be preached 
in season and out of season by every minister of the gos- 
pel, as well as that of faith in Christ/' This certainly 
teaches that faith and repentance are the duty of all men, 
not of some only. Ko one contends that the Confession 
teaches that God has given a limited command to repent. 
i( God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." But 
how could he give such a universal command to all sin- 
ners if he is not willing to pardon all sinners ? if his 
benevolent love is confined to some sinners in particular? 
How could our Lord command his ministers to preach the 
doctrine of faith and repentance to " every creature," if 
he does not desire that every one of them would believe 
and repent ? And how can he desire this if he does not 
feel infinite love for the souls of all ? ~\Yhen the Confes- 
sion teaches the duty of universal faith and repentance, it 
teaches by necessary inference the doctrine of God's uni- 
versal compassion and readiness to forgive. And it also 



26 



CALVINISM : 



teaches in the same inferential way, that the sacrifice of 
Christ for sin is ample for the forgiveness of every man. 
To preach the duty of immediate belief on the Lord Jesus 
Christ as obligatory upon every man, in connection with 
the doctrine imputed to the Confession by the reviser, 
that God feels compassion for only the elect, and that 
Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for all, would be self- 
contradictory. The two things cannot be put together. 
The reviser misunderstands the Standards, and reads into 
them a false doctrine that is not there. 

Confession xv. 5, 6, declares that "it is every man's 
duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particu- 
larly. Every man is bound to make private confession of 
his sins to God, praying for the pardon thereof, upon 
which, and the forsaking of them, he shall find mercy." 
How shall every such man find mercy, if the reviser's 
understanding of the Confession is correct ? if it teaches 
that God's love for sinners is limited to the elect, and 
that Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient for the sins of all ? 
According to the revised version, the meaning of the 
Westminster divines in this section is, that some men 
who "pray for pardon and forsake sin" shall "find 
mercy," and some shall not. 

Larger Catechism, 160, declares that " it is required of 
those that hear the word preached, that they attend upon 
it with diligence, preparation and prayer; receive the 
truth in faith, love, meekness and readiness of mind, as 
the word of God ; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth 
the fruit of it in their lives." Would God require all this 
from every hearer of the word, if he were not kindly 
disposed towards him? if he did not love and pity his 
immortal soul, and desire its salvation ? Does not this 
declaration mean that God will encourage, assist, and 
bless every hearer of the word without exception who 



PURE AND MIXED 



27 



does the things mentioned ? What shadow of reason 
is there for alleging that it means that God will help 
and bless some of these hearers, and some he will not ? 
But in order to make out that the section does not teach 
the universal offer of mercy, this must be the allega- 
tion. 

Larger Catechism, 95, declares that " the moral law is 
of use to all men, to inform them of the holy nature and 
will of God ; to convince them of their disability to keep 
it, and of the sinful pollution of their nature ; to humble 
them in the sense of sin and misery, and thereby help 
them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, 
and of the perfection of his obedience." But what is the 
use of showing every man his need of Christ, if Christ's 
sacrifice is not sufficient for every man ? What reason is 
there for convincing every man of the pollution of his 
nature, and humbling him for it, unless God is for every 
man " most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, 
forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin ? " The doctrine 
taught in this section, that all men are to be convicted of 
sin, like the doctrine that all men are to repent and to 
pray, supposes that God sustains a common benevolent 
and merciful relation to them all. 

Confession xxi. 3, declares that " prayer with thanks- 
giving, being one special part of religious worship, is re- 
quired by God of all men." How could God require 
prayer from every man, if he were not disposed to hear 
the prayer of every man ? And does not this imply that 
he loves the soul of every man ? The duty of prayer sup- 
poses a corresponding kind and gracious feeling in God 
that prompts him to answer it ; that " he is the hearer of 
prayer, and that unto him all flesh should come." In 
order to make out his " offensive doctrine," the reviser 
must explain this section by appending to it : " Though 



28 



CALVINISM : 



God requires prayer from all men, lie is the hearer of 
prayer for only the elect." 

Confession vii. 3, declares that " man by his fall hav- 
ing made himself incapable of life by that (legal) cove- 
nant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly 
called the covenant of grace: wherein he freely offered to 
sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of 
them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising 
to give unto all those that are ordained unto life, his Holy 
Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe." Two 
distinct and different things are mentioned here: (a) an 
offer of salvation ; (b) a promise of the Holy Spirit to 
make the unwilling sinner willing to accept it. The num- 
ber of those to whom the offer of salvation is made is un- 
limited ; of those to whom the promise of the Spirit to 
"make them willing" is made, is limited by "ordination 
to life" or election. It is clear that God may desire that 
to be done by man under the influence of his common 
grace in the common call, which he may not decide and 
purpose to make him do by the operation of his special 
grace in the effectual call. His desire that sinners would 
hear his universal call to repentance may be, and is un- 
limited ; but his purpose to overcome their unwillingness 
and incline them to repentance may be, and is limited. 
God offers Christ's sacrifice to every man, without excep- 
tion, and assures him that if he will trust in it he shall be 
saved, and gives him common grace to help and encour- 
age him to believe. This is a proof that God loves his soul 
and desires its salvation. But God does not, in addition 
to this universal offer of mercy, promise to overcome every 
man's aversion to believe and repent and his resistance 
of common grace. Election and pretention have no ref- 
erence to the offer of salvation or to common grace. They 
relate only to special grace and the effectual application of 



PURE AND MIXED 



29 



Christ's sacrifice. The universal offer of mercy taught in 
this section evinces the universality of God's compassion 
towards sinners. 

Larger Catechism, 63, declares that " the ministry of the 
gospel testifies that whosoever believes in Christ shall be 
saved, and excludes none that will come unto him." The 
reference here is not to the members of the visible Church, 
as one reviser contends who denies that the universal offer 
is in this section, because the persons spoken of are those 
who have not yet believed in Christ, and have not yet 
come to him. The motive is held out to such persons, 
that if they w ill believe and come, they shall be saved by 
the infinite and universal mercy of God which " excludes 
none that will come unto him." 

With what show of reason can it be said that a symbol 
containing such declarations as these respecting the nature 
and attributes of God, his requirement that every man 
confess sin to him, repent of it, pray for its forgiveness 
and trust in his mercy, contains no announcement of his 
infinite love and compassion ? This great and blessed 
truth is worked and woven all through the Standards, as 
the doctrines of the Divine existence and the immortality 
of the soul are through the Bible. The Bible is nonsense 
without these latter, and the Confession is nonsense with- 
out the former. 

The Westminster creed is beino; wounded in the house 
, of its friends. To a spectator it appears amazing that so 
many who have " received and accepted" it as teaching 
"the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures" 
should charge so many and so great errors upon it. If the 
Confession and Catechisms really are what they have been 
alleged to be, during the last six months, by some advo- 
cates of revision, they ought not to be revised at all, but 
to be repudiated. 



30 



CALVINISM : 



Y. 

THE MEANING AND VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE OF DECREES. 1 

The proposal to revise the Westminster Standards has 
brought the doctrine of the Divine Decrees into the fore- 
ground. The controversy turns upon this pivot. Other 
features come in incidentally, but this is capital and con- 
trolling. This is the stone of stumbling and rock of of- 
fence. If election and reprobation were not in the Con- 
fession and Catechism, probably the fifteen presbyteries 
would not have overtured the Assembly. It is for this 
reason that we purpose to discuss the Meaning and Yahie 
of the Doctrine of Decrees, so plainly inculcated in the 
Scriptures, and from them introduced into the Westmin- 
ster symbol. We are certain that the Biblical truth of. 
the sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners, and of 
his just liberty to determine how many he will save from 
their sin, and how many he will leave to their self-will in 
sin, is greatly misunderstood by some who profess the 
Presbyterian faith, and who describe it in much the same 
terms with the anti-Calvinist, and inveigh against it with 
something of the same bitterness. Though differing 
greatly from one another in personal feeling and attitude 
towards the Confession, the conservative and the radical 
reviser nevertheless practically meet together at this point, 
and while the former has no desire to make any changes 

1 By permission, from the Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Janu- 
ary, 1890. 



PURE AND MIXED 



31 



in the doctrine of decrees that Will essentially impair the 
integrity of the Calvinistic system, he yet unintentionally 
aids the radical in bringing about a revolution in the sen- 
timent and creed of the Presbyterian Church concerning 
one of the most distinctive articles of its belief. Because 
revision, be it conservative or radical, contends that there 
is more or less that is un- Scriptural in the tenets of elec- 
tion and reprobation as they are now formulated in the 
Standards, and that they are bad in their influence. The 
amount of error in them, and the degree in which they 
are injurious, is variously stated by advocates of revision. 
But the general opinion of this class is, that they require 
more or less amending to get rid of certain elements that 
are derogatory to the character of God, and are inconsist- 
ent with the Christian redemption. Anti-revision denies 
this. The only question of importance, therefore, in this 
juncture, is: Revision, or Nonre vision. And this, as we 
have said, turns mainly upon the third chapter of the 
Confession, entitled " Of God's Eternal Decree," together 
with the kindred declarations growing out of this, in other 
parts of the Standards. It will therefore be our aim to 
show that the doctrine of decrees, as it is found in the 
Westminster Standards, is neither un-Scriptural nor erro- 
neous ; and that it is a highly useful and edifying doctrine 
in the formation of the Christian character. We heartily 
adopt the affirmation of the Thirty-nine Articles, that 
"the godly consideration of predestination, and our elec- 
tion in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable 
comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves 
the workings of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works 
of the flesh and their earthly members, and drawing up 
their minds to high and heavenly things, as well because 
it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith, and fer- 
vently kindle their love towards God." 



32 



CALVINISM : 



111 carrying out our purpose, we shall mention certain 
characteristics of the Westminster doctrine that are hoth 
Scriptural and rational, and of great value hoth specula- 
tively in constructing the Christian system, and practically 
in forming the Christian experience. 

1. The first characteristic of the Confessional statement 
that we mention is, that it brings sin within the scope, 
and under the control of the Divine decree. Sin is one 
of the " whatsoevers" that have "come to pass," all of 
which are " ordained." Some would have the doctrine 
that sin is decreed stricken from the Confession, because 
in their view it makes God the author of sin. The Con- 
fession denies this in its assertion that by the Divine de- 
cree "violence is not offered to the will of the creature, 
nor is the liberty of second causes taken away, but rather 
established." In so saying, the authors had in mind the 
common distinction recognized in Calvinistic creeds and 
systems, between the efficient and the permissive decree, 
though they do not use the terms here. The latter, like 
the former, makes an event certain, but by a different 
mode from that of the former. When God executes his 
decree that Saul of Tarsus shall be "a vessel of mercy," 
he works efficiently within him by his Holy Spirit " to 
will and to do." When God executes his decree that Ju- 
das Iscariot shall be " a vessel of wrath fitted for destruc- 
tion," he does not work efficiently within him " to will 
and to do," but permissively in the way of allowing him 
to have his own wicked will. He decides not to restrain 
him or to regenerate him, hut to leave him to his own ob- 
stinate and rebellious inclination and purpose; and accord- 
ingly " the Son of man goeth as it was determined, but 
woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed" (Luke 22 : 
22; Acts 2: 23). The two Divine methods in the two 
cases are plainly different, but the perdition of Judas was 



PUKE AND MIXED 



33 



as much foreordained and free from chance, as the con- 
version of Saul. Man's inability to explain how God can 
make sin certain, but not compulsory, by & permissive de- 
cree, is no reason for denying that he can do it or that he 
has done it. Appendix, Note 2. 

It is sometimes argued that the Confession excludes the 
tenet of the permissive decree, by its declaration that the 
" providence of God extendeth itself even to the first fall, 
and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a 
bare permission" (Conf. v. 4). The "bare permission" 
which the Assembly rejects here is that of the Tridentine 
theologians, who asserted that sin arises from the "mere 
permission " of God. The Reformed theologians under- 
stood this to mean, that in respect to the fall of angels and 
men God is an idle and helpless spectator (deo otioso 
spectante), and that sin came into the universe without 
any positive decision and purpose on his part. This kind 
of " permission " implies that God could not have pre- 
vented sin had he so decided, and is really no permission 
at all ; because no one can properly be said to permit what 
he cannot prevent. In order to exclude this view of 
"permission," the Assembly assert " such [a permission] 
as hath joined with it a most holy, wise, and powerful 
bounding and otherwise ordering and governing of [the 
sins of angels and men], in a manifold dispensation, to 
his own holy ends ; yet so as the sinf ulness thereof pro- 
ceedeth only from the creature, not from God, who neither 
is nor can be the author of sin." This last clause declares 
that God's relation to the sin which he decrees, is not that 
of efficiency, but permission. For if God worked directly 
and efficiently in angel or man " to will," when he wills 
wickedly, the " sinfulness of sin " would " proceed from 
God," and God would be "the author of sin." The per- 
missive decree is taught also in Larger Catechism, 19. 
3 



34 



CALVINISM : 



" God by liis providence permitted some of the angels, 
wilfully and irrecoverably, to fall into sin and damnation, 
limiting and ordering that, and all their sins, to his own 
glory." 

The permissive decree is supported by Scripture, in the 
statement that God " in times past suffered (elaae) all na- 
tions to walk in their own ways " (Acts 14 : 16) ; that 
" the times of this ignorance God overlooked " (vweptScov) 
(Acts 17: 30); that God "gave rebellious Israel their 
own desire (Psalm 78 : 29) ; that " he gave them their 
request " (Psalm 106 : 15). This phraseology is never 
employed when holiness is spoken of. The Bible never 
says that God permits man to be holy, or to act right- 
eously. He efficiently influences and actuates him to 
this. Accordingly the other Reformed creeds, like the 
Westminster, mark the difference between God's relation 
to holiness and sin. The Second Helvetic, Cli. viii., says : 
" Quotiescunque Dens aliquid mali in Scriptura facere 
dicitur atque videtur, non ideo dicitur, quod homo malum 
non faciat, sed quod Dens fieri sinat et non prohiheat, 
justo suo judicio, qui prohibere potuisset, si voluisset." 
The Belgic Confession, Art. 13, asserts that God's "power 
and goodness are so great and incomprehensible, that he 
orders and executes his work in the most excellent and 
just manner even when the devil and wicked men act un- 
justly. We are persuaded that lie so restrains the devil 
and all our enemies that without his will and permission 
they cannot hurt us." The Dort Canons, i. 15, teach that 
" God, out of his sovereign, most just, and unchangeable 
good pleasure hath decreed to learn some men in the com- 
mon misery into which they have wilfully plunged them- 
selves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the 
grace of conversion, \mt permitting them in his just judg- 
ment to follow their own way, at last, for the declaration 



PURE AND MIXED 



35 



of liis justice, to condemn and punish them forever, not 
only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their 
other sins." 

And here is the place to notice the error of those who 
represent snpralapsarianism as differing from infralapsa- 
rianism by referring sin to the efficient decree, thereby 
making God the author of it. Dr. Schaff, for example, 
asserts that " Calvin carried the doctrine of the Divine 
decrees beyond the Augustinian infralapsarianism, which 
makes the fall of Adam the object of a permissive or pas- 
sive decree, to the very verge of snpralapsarianism, which 
traces even the first sin to an efficient or positive decree " 
(Creeds, i. 453). But both schemes alike refer sin to the 
permissive decree, and both alike deny that God is the 
author of sin. Supralapsarians like Beza and Gomar re- 
pel this charge, which anti-Calvinists made against both 
divisions of the Calvinists. Brandt, who was on the Ar- 
minian side, so understood Gomar. In describing the 
difference between Arminius and Gomar, he says of the 
latter : " Gomarus maintained that it was appointed by an 
eternal decree of God, who among mankind should be 
saved, and who should be damned. From whence it re- 
sulted that some men should be drawn to righteousness, 
and being drawn were preserved from falling; but that 
God suffered all the rest to remain in the common corrup- 
tion of human nature, and in their own iniquities " (Re- 
formation in the Low Countries, Book xviii.). Calvin, 
Inst. III. xxii., says that " man falls according to the ap- 
pointment of Divine providence, but falls by his own 
fault." 1 The difference between them relates to an alto- 

1 Shedd : Dogmatic Theology, i. 409 (Note). A remark is in place 
here, upon the often cited "decretum horribile " of Calvin. The Di- 
vine sovereignty in the salvation of sinners when properly viewed, in- 
spires a solemn and religious awe before that Infinite Being who, in the 



36 



CALVINISM : 



gether different point : namely, the order in which the 
decrees of election and reprobation stand to that of crea- 
tion. The supralapsarian asserts that in the logical order 
of nature (not of time, for all the decrees are eternal), the 
decree to elect and reprobate certain men is before (supra) 
the decree to create them ; the infralapsarian, that it is 
after (infra). The former contends that God begins by 
electing some men and reprobating others, and in order to 
execute these two decrees creates man and permits (not 
efficiently causes) the fall. The infralapsarian contends 
that God begins by creating man and permitting (not 
causing) the fall, and then out of this fallen and guilty 
race elects some to life, and leaves others to their volun- 
tary sin and its just penalty, The supralapsarian order is 
liable to the charge that " God creates some men in order 
to damn them," because creation follows from reprobation. 
The infralapsarian order is not liable to this charge, be- 
cause creation does not follow from reprobation, but pre- 
cedes it. 1 The "Westminster Assembly, in common with 

Language of Eliliu, " giveth not account of any of his matters " (Job 
33 : 13). This is tlie meaning of Calvin's " decretum quidem horribile 
fateor " (Inst. III. xxiii. 7). Those who quote this in disparagement of 
the doctrine of predestination, suppose that he used "•horrible" in the 
modern vulgar sense of " hateful " and " repulsive," as when persons 
speak of a "horrible stench,'' or an "awful noise." Of course he 
could not have intended to pour contempt upon what he believed to le 
a truth of revelation, by employing the word in this popular and some- 
what slangy signification. Calvin was a highly educated classical 
scholar, and his Latin ii as accurate and elegant as any since the days 
of Cicero and Virgil. In the classical writers, " horror " sometimes sig- 
nifies awe and veneration. Lucretius, for example, describes the wor- 
ship of the gods as originating in the " mortalibus insitus horror" (De 
Natura, v. 11G4). The feeling of reverential fear is expressed in 
Jacob's words, " How dreadful is this place ! " (Gen. 28 :17). In this 
sense of the word, the doctrine of predestination might be called "a 
dreadful decree," without disparaging it in the least. 

1 The Arminian Remonstrants stated the difference between the two 



PURE AND MIXED 



37 



the Calvinistic creeds previously made, adopted the infra- 
lapsarian order, though some theologians, like the elder 
Hodge, find a concession to the supralapsarians in some of 
their phraseology. 

The doctrine of the permissive decree has great value 
in two respects: (a) In taking sin out of the sphere of 
chance, (b) In explaining the tenet of pretention, or 
" foreordination to everlasting death." 

First, by the permissive decree, sin is brought within 
the Divine plan of the universe, and under the Divine 
control. Whatever is undecreed must be by hap-hazard 
and accident. If sin does not occur by the Divine pur- 
pose and permission, it occurs by chance. And if sin oc- 
curs by chance, the deity, as in the ancient pagan theolo- 
gies, is limited and hampered by it. lie is not " God 
over all." Dualism is introduced into the theory of the 
universe. Evil is an independent and uncontrollable prin- 
ciple. God governs only in part. Sin with all its effects 
is beyond his sway. This dualism God condemns as er- 
ror, in his words to Cyrus by Isaiah, " I make peace and 
create evil ; " and in the words of Proverbs 16 : 4, " The 
Lord hath made all things for himself ; yea, even the 
wicked for the day of evil." " We believe," says the Bel- 



divisions of Calvinists as follows: "Our opponents teach, First, that 
God, as some [i.e., supralapsarians] assert, has ordained by an eternal 
and irresistible decree some from among men, whom he does not con- 
sider as created much less as fallen, to eternal life, and some to ever- 
lasting perdition, without any regard to their obedience or disobedience, 
in order to exert both his justice and his mercy. Secondly, that God, 
as others [i.e., infralapsai'ians] teach, considers mankind not only as 
created but fallen in Adam, and consequently as obnoxious to the curse ; 
from which fall and destruction he has determined to release some, and 
save them as instances of his mercy, and to leave others under the 
curse for examples of his justice, without any regard to belief or unbe- 
lief" (Brandt: Reformation in the Low Countries, Book xix.). 



38 



CALVINISM : 



gic Confession, Art. 13, " that God after he had created 
all things did not forsake them, or give them up to for- 
tune or chance, hut that he rules and governs them ac- 
cording to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this 
world without his appointment ; nevertheless, God neither 
is the author of, nor can he charged with, the sins which 
are committed." 

Secondly, by the permissive decree, the pretention of 
some sinners and thereby their " f oreordination to ever- 
lasting death " is shown to be rational as well as Scriptu- 
ral, because God, while decreeing the destiny of the non- 
elect, is not the author of his sin or of his perdition. 
Pretention is a branch of the permissive decree, and 
stands or falls with it. "Whoever would strike the doc- 
trine of pretention from the Standards, to be consistent 
must strike out the general doctrine that sin is decreed. 
If God could permissively decree the fall of Adam and 
his posterity without being the cause and author of it, he 
can also permissively decree the eternal death of an in- 
dividual sinner without being the cause and author of it. 
In pretention, God repeats, in respect to an individual, 
the act which he performed in respect to the race. He 
permitted the whole human species to fall in Adam in 
such a manner that they were responsible and guilty for 
the fall, and he permits an individual of the species to 
remain a sinner and to be lost by sin, in such a manner 
that the sinner is responsible and guilty for this. 

The Westminster Standards, in common with the Cal- 
vinistic creeds generally, begin with affirming the univer- 
sal sovereignty of God over his entire universe : over 
heaven, earth, and hell ; and comprehend all beings and 
all events under his dominion. Nothing comes to pass 
contrary to his decree. Nothing happens by chance. 
Even moral evil, which he abhors and forbids, occurs by 



PUKE AND MIXED 



39 



" the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ; " 
and jet occurs through the agency of the unforced and 
self-determining will of man as the efficient. 

Why should such a tenet as this, taught by Scripture 
and supported by reason, be stricken out of the Confes- 
sion ; or if not stricken out, so minimized as to declare 
that God decrees holiness but not sin, elects but does not 
pass by ? On the contrary, why should it not be pro- 
claimed boldly and everywhere, that above all the sin, 
and the misery caused by sin, in this world of mankind, 
there sits on the throne a w T ise, benevolent, and omnipo- 
tent Sovereign who for reasons sufficient in his view 
permitted, but did not cause or compel, the fall of angels 
and men, with the intention of guiding the issue of it all 
to an ultimate end worthy of himself — namely, the mani- 
festation of his two great attributes of mercy and justice : 
of mercy, in the salvation from sin of i; a great multitude 
whom no man can number;" of justice, in leaving a 
multitude that can be numbered to the sin which they love 
and prefer, and its righteous punishment. 

2. The second characteristic of the Westminster doc- 
trine of decrees is the union of election and jpreterition. 
It includes both tenets, and is consistent in doing so. The 
discontent with the Confession is greater upon this point 
than upon the first that we have mentioned. Many do 
not object to what the Standards say upon the abstract 
subject of the Divine decree, who particularly dislike its 
concrete teaching upon election and pretention. The dis- 
crimination which the Confession makes between sinners ; 
the Divine purpose to save some and not all ; they as- 
sert to be un-T3iblical and unjust. " The foreordination 
of some men to everlasting life, and of others to everlast- 
ing death, and pretention of all the non-elect, are equally 
inconsistent with a proper conception of Divine justice," 



40 



CALVINISM : 



is the assertion of a strenuous advocate of revision. Some 
would strike out both election and pretention ; others 
would strike out pretention and retain election. We shall 
endeavor to show that one of these proposals is as destruc- 
tive of the integrity of the system as the other ; that both 
tenets must stand, or both must go. 

That individual election is taught in the Bible is very 
generally conceded. But individual pretention is taught 
with equal plainness. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour 
of sinners, is as explicit upon this subject as he is upon 
that of endless punishment. Upon two occasions (Matt. 
13 : 14, 15 ; John 12 : 38-40), he quotes the words of 
God to Isaiah, 6 : 9, 10 : " Go and tell this people, Hear 
ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but 
perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and 
make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see 
with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand 
with their heart, and convert, and be healed." The 
prophet was instructed to declare the pretention of a part 
of Israel, and our Lord endorses the doctrine. And he 
frequently connects the voluntary and guilty rejection of 
his gracious offer of mercy with the eternal purpose and 
plan of God. The impenitence of Capernaum and of 
Chorazin and Bethsaida was guilty, and punishable with 
a punishment greater than that of Sodom ; yet these sin- 
ners were " the wise and prudent " from whom the " Lord 
of heaven and earth" had u hid the things" of salvation 
(Matt. 11 : 20-26). " Many," he says, " are called, but 
few are chosen " (Matt. 22 : 14 ; Luke 17 : 34-36). With 
grief and tears over the hardness of heart and the bitter 
enmity of the Jerusalem sinners, he at the same time de- 
clares their reprobation by God. " Upon you shall come 
all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the blood of 
righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias. Behold your 



PURE AND MIXED 



41 



house is left unto you desolate " (Matt. 23 : 35-38). That 
the Apostolical Epistles teach pretention, we need not 
stop to prove. One principal objection made to the Paul- 
ine Christianity by its opponents is, that it is full of pre- 
destination both to holiness and sin. The Dort Canons, 
I. vi., enunciate Paul's doctrine in the following state- 
ment : " That some receive the gift of faith from God, 
and others do not receive it, proceeds from God's eternal 
decree. According to which decree, he graciously softens 
the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines 
them to believe ; while he leaves the non-elect in his just 
judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy." " Unto 
you," says our Lord, " it is given to know the mysteries 
of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given " 
(Matt. 13:11). 

Not only are both individual election and pretention 
taught in Scripture, but both are necessary in a creed 
in order to self-consistence. Pretention is the contrary 
of election, and one of two contraries necessarily implies 
the other. Eight implies wrong ; light implies dark- 
ness. No one would contend that there is light but 
not darkness ; right but not wrong. And no one should 
contend that there is an election of individuals, but not a 
pretention. 1 It is impossible to think of individual elec- 

1 The qualifying epithet "individual" is important here; because 
while individual election implies individual pretention as its contrary, 
classical election does not. If a whole class (say dying infants) are 
elected, no individuals of it are passed by. The true contrary to clas- 
sical election is classical pretention, not individual pretention. In clas- 
sical election, there cannot be the salvation of a part and perdition of 
a part, as there can be in individual election. The whole c'ass must 
either be elected, or else the whole class must be passed by ; the whole 
of it must be the objects of mercy, or else the whole of it must be the 
objects of justice. All must be saved, or else all must be lost. No dis- 
crimination is possible between individuals, as is the case in individual 
election. 



42 



CALVINISM : 



tion alone by itself, or to teach it alone by itself. Indi- 
vidual election implies and suggests individual reprobation. 
The elect himself (that is, one who hopes he is of the 
elect) sometimes fears that he is one of the non-elect. St. 
Paul kept his body under, lest he should be a reprobate 
" cast away." That Christian who denies the doctrine of 
pretention, and does not sometimes fear that God may 
pass him by, is not a model for imperfectly sanctified men. 
If God does not elect a sinner, he must of course pass him 
by. If God decides not to convert a sinner into a 
saint, he must of course decide to let him remain a sinner. 
If God does not purpose to make Judas Iscariot " a vessel 
of mercy," he must of course purpose to leave him " a 
vessel of wrath." Individual election without its anti- 
thetic pretention is only one-half of the circle of Divine 
truth. When God operates efficiently in the sinner's 
heart, to overcome his resistance of common grace, and 
his enmity to the law of God, this is election. When 
God does not work efficiently, but permissively leaves the 
sinner to himself, this is pretention. And he must do 
one thing or the other, in the instance of every sinner. 
And he must purpose to do one thing or the other, in 
every instance. And the purpose is an eternal one. Con- 
sequently to affirm in a creed the decree of individual 
election, and deny that of pretention, is the height of ab- 
surdity. 

Accordingly, the Reformed creeds contain both doc- 
trines ; sometimes both of them verbally expressed, and 
sometimes pretention implied from election verbally ex- 
pressed. Both doctrines are specified in the following 
symbols : Second Helvetic, Gallican, Belgic, First Scotch, 
Irish, Lambeth, Dort, Westminster. Election alone is 
specified in Augsburg, First Helvetic, Heidelberg, and 
Thirty-nine Articles. That the decree of individual elec- 



PURE AND MIXED 



43 



tion necessarily involves the antithetic decree of individual 
pretention, is evinced by the fact that Ursinus, one of the 
authors, and the principal one, of the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism, which verbally affirms election but not pretention, 
presents an elaborate statement and defence of reproba- 
tion in his Christian Theology (Qu. 54), composed in ex- 
planation of this creed. 1 

What is pretention ? It is God's passing by a sinner in 
the bestowment of regenerating, not of common grace. 
All men are blessed with common grace. There is no 

1 Dr. Schaff, in tlie Evangelist, for November 14, 1889, asserts that 
the Gallican, Belgic, Second Helvetic, First Scotch, and Dort symbols, 
"are silent on the decree of reprobation and pretention." The follow- 
ing extracts from his Creeds of Christendom show that this is an error. 
Gallican, Art- 12: "God calleth out of corruption and condemnation 
those whom he hath chosen without consideration of their works, in 
order to display in them the riches of his mercy ; leaving (laissant) the 
rest in this same corruption and condemnation, in order to manifest 
in them his justice." Belgic, Art. 16: "God is merciful, since he 
delivers from perdition all whom he hath elected in Christ Jesus, 
without any respect to their works ; just, in leaving (laissant) the others 
in the fall and perdition wherein they have precipitated themselves." 
Second Helvetic, Cap. x. 4, 6 : " Though God knows who are his, and 
sometimes the fewness of the elect is spoken of, yet we are to have hope 
for all, and no one is rashly to be numbered with the reprobate. We do 
not approve of the impious words of those who say: 'If I am elected, I 
shall be saved, however I may act ; if I am one of the reprobate, 
neither faith nor repentance will be of any use, since the decree of God 
cannot be altered."' First Scotch, Art. 8: "For this cause we are 
not afraid to call God our Father, not so much because he has created 
us, which we have in common with the reprobate, as that he has given 
to us his only Son to be our brother." Dort Canons, i. 15: "Holy 
Scripture testifieth that not all, but some only, are elected, while others 
are passed by in the eternal decree ; whom God out of his sovereign 
good pleasure hath decreed to leave in the misery into which they have 
wilfully plunged themselves, permitting them to follow their own way. 
And this is the doctrine of reprobation, which by no means makes God 
the author of sin (the very thought of which is blaspheny), but declares 
him to be a righteous judge and punisher of sin." 



44 



CALVINISM : 



election or reprobation in this reference. God's mercv in 
this form and degree of it is universal and indiscriminate. 
But common grace fails to save the sinner, because of his 
love of sin, his aversion to holiness, and his unbelief. 
The martyr Stephen's words are applicable to every man 
in respect to common grace: "Ye stiff-necked, ye do 
always resist the Holy Ghost" (Acts T : 51). Conse- 
quently, in order to save any sinner whatsoever requires a 
still higher grade of grace which, in the phrase of the 
Larger Catechism (GT), "powerfully determines" his will 
by regenerating it. Here is where the Divine discrimina- 
tion comes in. It is with reference to this kind and de- 
gree of grace that God says : " I will have mercy on whom 
I will have mercy " (Ex. 33 : 19 ; Rom. 9 : 15). And this 
is the Scripture truth which is now on trial in the Pres- 
byterian Church. This is the particular doctrine which 
excites animosity in some minds, and which it is con- 
tended must be cut out of the Confession like cancerous 
matter that is killing the body. Let us consider the ob- 
jections that are made to it. 

1. It is objected that pretention is inconsistent toith 
the infinite compassion of God for the souls of all men, 
and cannot be squared with such assertions as, "As I live, 
saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: 
turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? God so loved the 
world that, he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in him might not perish but have everlast- 
ing life." 

The first reply to this is, that these and many similar 
affirmations of the Divine pity for the sinful soul and 
desire for its salvation, are written in the same inspired 
volume that contains such assertions as the following : 
'•Many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able. He 



PURE AND MIXED 



45 



hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that 
they should not see with their eyes, and be converted, 
and I should heal them. The Son of man goeth as it was 
determined ; but woe unto that man by whom he is be- 
trayed. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, 
and I will have compassion on whom I will have compas- 
sion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him 
that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. The chil- 
dren being not yet born, neither having done any good or 
evil, that the purpose of God according to election might 
stand not of works but of him that calleth, it was said, 
The elder shall serve the younger. The disobedient stum- 
ble at the word, whereunto also they were appointed." 
Since both classes of passages come from God, he must 
perceive that they are consistent with each other whether 
man can or not. Both, then, must be accepted as eternal 
truth by an act of faith, by every one w T ho believes in the 
inspiration of the Bible. They must be presumed to be 
self-consistent, whether it can be shown or not. 

But, secondly, there are degrees of mercy. Because 
God does not show the highest degree of it to a particular 
sinner, it does not follow that he does not show him any 
at all. He may grant him the mercy of common grace, 
and when this is resisted and nullified by his hostile self- 
will and obstinate love of sin, he may decide not to bestow 
the mercy of special grace, and yet not be chargeable with 
destitution of love and compassion towards him. 1 Any 
degree of love is love ; and any degree of compassion is 
compassion. To contend that the Divine love must be of 
exactly the same degree towards all creatures alike or else 

1 Man is compelled to speak of God's decision or decree in this way, 
though strictly there is no before or after for him. All his decrees are 
eternal and simultaneous. Yet there is an order of nature. Special 
grace supposes the failure of common grace. 



46 



CALVINISM i 



it is not love, is untenable. It is certain that God can 
feel love and pity towards the souls of all men, as his 
creatures and as sinners lost by their own fault, and mani- 
fest it in that measure of grace which " leads to repent- 
ance " (Horn. 2 : 4), and would result in it if it were not 
resisted, and yet not actually save them all from the con- 
sequences of their own action. The Scriptures plainly 
teach that God so loved the whole world that he gave his 
only-begotten Son to make expiation for " the sins of the 
whole world ; " and they just as plainly teach that a part 
of this world of mankind are sentenced, by God, to eternal 
death for their sins. The Arminian and the Calvinist 
both alike deny the doctrine of universal salvation, yet 
believe that this is compatible with the doctrine of God's 
universal benevolence. Both deny the inference that if 
God does not save every human being, he does not love 
the soul of every human being ; that if he does not do as 
much for one person as he does for another, he is unmer- 
ciful towards him. It is a fallacy to maintain, that unless 
God does all that he possibly can to save a sinner, he does 
not do anything towards his salvation ; as it would be fal- 
lacious to maintain, that unless God bestows upon a person 
all the temporal blessings that are within his power, he 
does not show him any benevolence at all. This fallacy 
lies under the argument against pretention. It is asserted 
that if God "passes by" a sinner in the bestowment of 
regenerating grace, he has no love for his soul, no desire 
for its salvation, and does nothing towards its welfare. 
But if God really felt no compassion for a sinner, and 
showed him none, he would immediately jmnish him for 
his sin, and the matter would end here. The sinner's 
doom would be fixed. Just retribution would follow 
transgression instantaneously, and forever. And who can 
impeach justice? "As all men have sinned in Adam, 



PURE AND MIXED 



47 



and are obnoxious to eternal death, God would have done 
no injustice by leaving them all to perish, and delivering 
them over to condemnation on account of sin, according 
to the words of the Apostle : ' That every mouth may be 
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before 
God'" (Dort Canons, I. i.). But God does not do this. 
He suffers long and is forbearing with every sinner with- 
out exception. There is not a transgressor on earth, in 
Christendom or Heathendom, who is not treated by his 
Maker better than he deserves ; who does not experience 
some degree of the Divine love and compassion. God 
showers down upon all men the blessings of his provi- 
dence, and bestows upon them all more or less of the 
common influences and operation of the Holy Spirit. 
This is mercy to the souls of men universally, and ought 
to move them to repent of sin and forsake it. This com- 
mon grace and universal benevolence of God is often 
spoken of in Scripture. " Despisest thou, O man, the 
riches of God's goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffer- 
ing, not knowing [recognizing] that the goodness of God 
leads [tends to lead] thee to repentance ; but after thy 
hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself 
wrath against the day of wrath ? " (Rom. 2 : 4, 5). Here 
is the common grace of God enjoyed by men universally, 
and thwarted by their love of sin, and obstinate self-will 
in sin. But is God unmerciful and destitute of compas- 
sion towards this man, if he decides to proceed no further 
with him, but leave him where he is, and as he is ? Is all 
that God has done for him in the way of long-suffering, 
forbearance, kindness, and inward monitions in his con- 
science, to count for nothing? If this treatment of the 
sinner is not benevolence and compassion, what is it? It 
is mercy in God to reveal to every man the law of God, 
nay even " the wrath of God against all ungodliness and 



48 



CALVINISM : 



unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unright- 
eousness," for by this revelation the man is warned and 
urged to turn from sin and live. This is one way in 
which God says to the sinner, "Turn ye, turn ye, for why 
will ye die? As I live I have no pleasure in the death of 
him that dieth." It is mercy in God, and is so represented 
by St. Paid, when he " does not leave himself without 
witness, in that he does good, sending rain from heaven, 
and fruitful seasons, filling men's hearts with good and 
gladness, and makes of one blood all nations of men for 
to dwell on all the face of the earth, and determines the 
bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, 
if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though 
he be not far from every one of us " (Acts 14 : IT ; 17 : 
26, 27). That this gracious and fatherly interest in their 
sonls' welfare is repelled and nullified by their preference 
for sin and love of worldly pleasure, and comes to naught, 
does not alter the nature of it as it lies in the heart of 
God. It is Divine mercy and love for human souls, not- 
withstanding its ill success. 

Common grace is great and undeserved mercy to a shu 
ner, and would save him if he did not resist and frustrate 
it. In and by it, " God commandeth all men everywhere 
to repent," and whoever repents will find mercy. In and 
by it, God commands every hearer of the written word 
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and whoever believes 
shall be saved. The common grace of God consists of 
the written, or in the instance of the heathen the unwrit- 
ten word, together with more or less of the convicting 
operation of the Holy Spirit, Says Hodge (ii. 667), 
" The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of 
truth, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is present 
with every human mind, enforcing truth, restraining from 
evil, exciting to good, and imparting wisdom, or strength, 



PUKE AND MIXED 



49 



when, where, and in what measure seeraeth to him good. 
In this sphere, also, lie ' divideth to every man severally 
as he will.' " Whoever is in any degree convinced of 
sin, and is in any degree urged by his conscience to con- 
fess and forsake it, is a subject of common grace. And 
whoever stifles conviction, refuses confession, and "holds 
down the truth in unrighteousness," resists common grace. 
St. Paul- charges this sin upon both the heathen and the 
evangelized. Common grace, we repeat, is great and un- 
deserved mercy to a sinner, and by it God evinces his 
pity for his soul, and his desire for its salvation. But 
man universally, unevangelized and evangelized, nullifies 
this form and degree o2 the Divine mercy, by his opposi- 
tion. The opponent of pretention comes in here at this 
point, and contends that God is bound to go yet further 
than common grace with sinful man, and subdue his en- 
mity by creating him anew in the spirit of his mind ; and 
that if he " passes him by," and leaves him where he is, 
and as he is, he has no love for his soul. The sovereignty 
of God in this matter of bestowing regenerating grace is 
denied. To bestow it upon Jacob but not upon Esau, 
upon some but not upon all, is said to be injustice and 
partiality. 

Scripture denies that God is under obligation to follow 
up his defeated common grace with his irresistible special 
grace. It asserts his just liberty to do as he pleases in 
regard to imparting that measure of grace which produces 
the new birth, and makes the sinner " willing in the day 
of God's power." The passages have already been cited. 
And reason teaches the same truth. Mercy from its very 
nature is free and optional in its exercise. God may mani- 
fest great and unmerited compassion to all men in com- 
mon grace and the outward call, and limit his compassion 
if he please to some men in special grace and the effectual 
4 



50 



CALVINISM : 



call. He may call upon all men to repent and believe, 
and promise salvation to all that do so, and jet not incline 
all men to do so. No one will say that a man is insin- 
cere in offering a gift, if he does not along with it produce 
the disposition to accept it. And neither should one as- 
sert this of God. God sincerely desires that the sinner 
would hear his outward call, and that his common grace 
might succeed with him. lie sincerely desires that every- 
one who hears the message : " Ho, every one that thirst- 
eth, come ye to the waters ; yea, come buy wine and milk 
without money," would come just as he is, and of his own 
free will, " for all things are ready." The fact that God 
does not go further than this with all men and conquer 
their aversion, is consistent with this desire. JS T o one con- 
tends that God is not universally benevolent because he 
bestows more health, wealth, and intellect upon some than 
upon others. And no one should contend that he is not 
universally merciful, because he bestows more grace upon 
some than upon others. The omnipotence of God is able 
to save the whole world of mankind, and to our narrow 
vision it seems singular that he does not ; but be this as 
it may, it is false to say that if he does not exert the 
lohole of his power, he is an unmerciful being towards 
those who abuse his common grace. That degree of for- 
bearance and long-suffering which God shows towards 
those who resist it, and that measure of effort which he 
puts forth to convert them, is real mercy towards their 
souls. It is the sinner who has thwarted this benevolent 
approach of God to his sinful heart. Millions of men in 
all ages are continually beating back God's mercy in the 
outward call and nullifying it. A man who has had 
common grace, has been the subject of the Divine com- 
passion to this degree. If he resists it, he cannot charge 
God with unmercifulness, because he does not bestow 



PURE AND MIXED 



51 



upon him still greater mercy in the form of regenerating 
grace. A beggar who contemptuously rejects the five 
dollars offered by a benevolent man, cannot charge stingi- 
ness upon him because after this rejection of the five dol- 
lars he does not give him ten. Any sinner who complains 
of God's "passing him by " in the hestowment of regen- 
erating grace after his abuse of common grace, virtually 
says to the High and Holy One who inhabits eternity, 
"Thou hast tried once to convert me from sin ; now try 
again, and try harder." 1 

God's desire that a sinner should " turn and jive " 
under common grace, is not incompatible with his pur- 
pose to leave him to " eat of the fruit of his own ways, 
and be filled with his own devices " — which is the same 
thing as " foreordaining him to everlasting death." A 
decree of God may not be indicative of what he desires 
and loves, lie decrees sin, but abhors and forbids it. 
lie decrees the physical agony of millions of men in 
earthquake, flood, and conflagration, but he does not 
take delight in it. His omnipotence could prevent this 



1 An advocate of revision remarks that " the Calvinist is doubtless 
right in saying that God is under no obligations to save us. Still, 
even if this be the case, God may be, and I believe is under obliga- 
tions to afford every man an opportunity to be saved ; that he has no 
right to 'pass by' anyone." Two criticisms upon this suggest them- 
selves. First, God in the outward call does afford every man an oppor- 
tunity to be saved. To every evangelized man he says, "Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." This is " an oppor- 
tunity to be saved." To every unevangelized man he says, u Repent of 
thy sins, and I will forgive them." This is "an opportunity to be 
saved." That in both instances the opportunity is rejected, does not 
destroy the fact. Secondly, if God is " under obligations to afford the 
opportunity to be saved," then salvation is an act of justice and the 
performance of a duty. In affording man the opportunity to be saved, 
God discharges his obligations. In this case, " grace is no more grace" 
(Eom. 9:6). 



52 



CALVINISM : 



suffering in which he has no pleasure, but he decides for 
adequate reasons not to do so. Similarly he could pre- 
vent the eternal death of every single member of the 
human family, in which he takes no pleasure, but decides 
not to c,o so for reasons that are wise in his sight. The 
distinction between the revealed will and the secret 
will of God is a valid one ; 1 and the latter of these 
wills nay be no index of the former, but the exact 
contra vy of it. This is particularly the case when evil 
is the thing decreed. 2 

2. Secondly, it is objected to pretention that it is par- 
tiality. It would be, if sinners had a claim upon God for 
his regenerating grace. In this case he could make no 
discrimination, and must regenerate and save all. Par- 
tiality is impossible within the sphere of mercy, because 
the conditions requisite to it are wanting. It can exist 
only within the sphere of justice, where there are rights 
and duties/ claims and obligations. A debtor cannot 
pay some of his creditors and " pass by " others, without 
partiality. But in the sphere of mercy, where there is 
no indebtedness, and no claim, the patron may give to 
one beggar and not to another, if he so please, because he 
" may do what he will with his own " — that is, with what 



1 God's revealed will, or will of desire, is expressed in Isa. 55 : 1 ; 
Ezek. 33 : 11 ; 1 Tim. 2:4; Tit. 2:11. His secret will, or will of de- 
cision and purpose in particular instances, is expressed in Mat. 13 : 11 ; 
John 6: 37, 44, 65; Kom. 9 : 16, 18, 19. 

2 The difference between will as general desire and inclination, and 
will as a particular volition or decision in a special instance, is seen in 
human action, and is well understood. For sufficient reasons, a man 
may decide in a particular case to do by a volition something entirely 
contrary to his uniform and abiding inclination. He is uniformly 
averse and disinclined to physical pain, but he may decide to have his 
leg amputated. This decision is his "decree," and is no index of 
what he is pleased with. 



PUKE AND MIXED 



53 



he does not owe to any one. The parable of the talents 
was spoken by our Lord to illustrate the doctrine of the 
Divine sovereignty in the bestowment of unmerited gifts ; 
and the regeneration of the soul is one of the greatest of 
them. 

This is a conclusive answer to the charge of partiality 
and injustice, but some would avoid the charge by striking 
out the tenet of pretention, and retaining that of election. 
In this case, election becomes universal. If no men are 
omitted in the bestowment of regenerating grace, all men 
are elected. This is universal salvation, because all the 
elect are infallibly regenerated and saved. And this is 
the manner in which the Later Lutheranism handles the 
doctrine. It denies pretention, and strenuously opposes 
this article of the Reformed creed. If the Presbyterian 
Church, after having adopted pretention for two centu- 
ries, shall now declare that it is an un-Scriptural and erro- 
neous tenet, the meaning of the revision will be, that God 
has no sovereign liberty to "pass by" any sinners, but 
must save them all. This is the form in which election 
is held by Schleiermacher and his school. They contend 
that there is no reprobation of any sinner whatsoever. 
All men are elected, because to pass by any is injustice 
and partiality. " Calling (vocatio)," says Dorner, " is 
universal, for the Divine purpose of redemption is just 
as universal as the need and capacity of redemption so that 
the notion of a Divine decree to pass by a portion of 
mankind, and to restore freedom of decision only to the 
rest, is out of the question" (Christian Doctrine, iv. 183). 
It is this form of Universalism, which postulates the offer 
of mercy to all men as something due to them, if not in 
this life then in the next, and denies that the regener- 
ating work of the Holy Spirit is confined to earth and 
time, but goes on in the intermediate state, that is per- 



54 



CALVINISM : 



colating into the Scotch and American Calvinism from 
the writings of one class of German divines. Should 
the presbyteries reject the doctrine of pretention they 
will help on this tendency. A creed like the Heidel- 
berg, or the Thirty-nine Articles, may not have preten- 
tion verbally stated, and yet imply it by its statement 
of election and by other parts of the symbol. But if 
a creed like the Westminster, which has both doctrines 
verbally stated, is subsequently revised so as to strike out 
pretention, then this tenet cannot be implied. It is 
positively branded as error, and rejected by the revising 
Church. If therefore the presbyteries shall assert that 
God does not " pass by " any sinner in respect to regener- 
ating grace, they will commit themselves to universal 
salvation in the form above mentioned. Election will no 
longer be balanced and limited by pretention, but will be 
unlimited and universal. 

And with this will be connected another fatal error : 
namely, that God is under obligation to elect and regen- 
erate every man. If justice forbids him to " pass by " any 
sinners, and " ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their 
sin,'' he is bound to elect all sinners and " predestinate 
them to everlasting life." He has no liberty or sover- 
eignty in the case. He cannot say, " I will have mercy 
upon whom I will have mercy, and whom I will I harden 
[do not soften] " (Rom. 9 : IS). This transmutes mercy 
into justice. Pardon becomes a Divine duty. The offer 
of Christ's sacrifice, nay even the providing of it, becomes 
a debt which God owes to every human creature. This is 
the assumption that lies under all the various modes of 
Universalism. Sinful men, loving sin, bent on sin, are 
told that they are entitled to the offer of mercy and re- 
generating grace; that they must have a "fair opportu- 
nity " of salvation, if not here, then hereafter. Sinful men, 



PURE AND MIXED 



full of self-indulgence, confessing no sin and putting up 
no prayer for forgiveness, and who have all their lifetime 
suppressed the monitions of conscience and quenched the 
Holy Spirit's strivings with them in his exercise of com- 
mon grace, are taught that if God shall pass them by, and 
leave them to the sin that they prefer, he is an unmerci- 
ful despot. 

And here is the point where the practical value of the 
doctrine of election and pretention is clearly seen. With- 
out it, some of the indispensable characteristics of a gen- 
uine Christian experience are impossible. Hence it is 
that St. Paul continually employs it in producing true re- 
pentance for sin, deep humility before God, utter self-dis- 
trust, sole reliance on Christ's sacrifice, and a cheering 
hope and confidence of salvation, founded not on the sin- 
ner's ability and what God owes him, but on God's gra- 
cious and unobliged purpose and covenant. This is the 
doctrine which elicits from him the rapturous exclama- 
tion, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and 
knowledge of God. For who hath first given to him, and 
it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of him, 
and through him, and to him are all things : to whom be 
glory forever. Amen." This is the doctrine which in- 
structs the believer to ascribe all his holy acts, even the 
act of faith itself, to the unmerited and sovereign grace of 
his redeeming God, and with Charles Wesley to sing : 

' ' Hangs my helpless soul on Thee. " 

It is said that the doctrine of pretention is not and can- 
not be preached. It does not require technical terms and 
syllogistical reasoning, in order to preach a doctrine. 
Who so preaches the doctrine of the trinity, or of regen- 
eration, or of original sin, or of vicarious atonement, or 
of endless punishment ? The doctrine of pretention is 



56 



CALVINISM : 



preached whenever the herald proclaims to the transgres- 
sor of God's Jaw that sin is guilt and not misfortune ; that 
the criminal has no claim upon the pardoning power for 
pardon ; that the Supreme Judge might justly inflict 
upon him the penalty which his sin deserves ; that his 
soul is helplessly dependent upon the optional nnohliged 
decision of his Maker and Saviour ; and that it is noth- 
ing but God's special grace in regeneration that makes 
him to differ from others who go down to perdition. 
That these humbling and searching truths are taught 
more thoroughly at some times than others, is true. That 
they will empty some pews at all times, is true. It may 
be that they are less taught now than formerly ; and if 
so, this is not the time either to revise or construct creeds. 
But whenever the Divine Spirit is present with his illum- 
ination, and the Scriptures are plainly preached, they 
come into the foreground. If they shall be revised out of 
the Confession, it is certain that they will be taught less 
and less, and will finally disappear from the religious ex- 
perience. 

The sinner's acknowledgment that God might justly 
pass him by, and leave him in his resistance of common 
grace, is a necessary element in genuine repentance. 
Whoever denies this, lacks the broken and contrite heart. 
Such was the sorrow of the penitent thief: "We are in 
this condemnation justly ; for we receive the due reward 
of our deeds." Such was the penitence of the prodigal 
son : " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and am no 
more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of thy 
hired servants." Such was the temper of the leper-. 
"Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Ko one 
of these penitents took the ground that God owed him 
pardon and regeneration, and that to pass him by and or- 
dain him to the eternal death which sin deserves would 



PUIIE AND MIXED 



57 



be an act dishonorable to God. To deny God's sover- 
eignty in his exercise of mercy, is to set up a claim for 
salvation, and whoever does this evinces that he has no 
true view of sin as ill desert, and no true sorrow for it as 
such. There is need of this doctrine in all ages, owing to 
the pride of the human heart, and its unwillingness to 
bend the knee and renounce all merit and confess all de- 
merit before God. And there is special need of it in our 
age, when the Christian experience is defective at this 
point, and redemption is looked upon as something which 
God owes to mankind, and is bound to provide for them. 
Unless this important truth is repristinated, and restored 
to its proper place in the consciousness of the Church, the 
current of .Restorationism will set stronger and stronger, 
and the result will be a great apostasy in Christendom. 
This is no time to eradicate it from the Calvinistic creeds, 
but on the contrary to reaffirm it with confidence, and 
defend it out of Scripture. 

Some say that pretention is liable to be understood as 
preventing a sinner's salvation, and would have an ex- 
planation added to the doctrine, to the effect that this is 
not its meaning or intent. We would respect the opin- 
ion of any Christian believer who sincerely thinks that 
the language of the Standards is unguarded, and who 
does not desire to change their doctrines but only to make 
sure that they are understood. This is not revision, but 
explanation ; and a declarative statement similar to that of 
the United Presbyterians, which leaves the Confession un- 
touched, is the least objectionable of all the plans before 
the Presbyterian Churches. But if it be borne in mind 
that pretention is by the permissive, not efficient decree, 
what call is there for such a guarding clause ? How 
does or can God's decision to leave a sinner to do just 
what he likes, hinder the sinner from faith and repent- 



58 



CALVINISM : 



ance ? How does or can God's purpose to save another 
sinner, prevent this sinner from smiting on his breast, 
saying, u God, be merciful to me, a sinner? " " It is not 
the fault of the gospel,"' say the Dort Canons (I., iii. iv. 
9), " nor of Clirist offered therein, nor of God who calls 
men by the gospel and confers upon them various gifts, 
that those who are called by the ministry of the word re- 
fuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in them- 
selves." There is nothing causative in the decree of pret- 
ention. John Bnnyan's statement of the matter is plain 
common sense. " Eternal reprobation makes no man a 
sinner. The foreknowledge of Gocl that the reprobate 
will perish, makes no man a sinner. God's infallible de- 
termining upon the damnation of him that perisheth, 
makes no man a sinner. God's patience and forbearance 
until the reprobate fits himself for eternal destruction, 
makes no man a sinner " (Reprobation Asserted, xi.). 
Whatever God does by a permissive decree, excludes 
causation on his part. God is not the author of the sin 
in which he leaves the sinner ; or of the impenitence to 
which he gives him over. His action in pretention is in- 
action, rather than action. lie decides to do nothing to 
prevent the free will of the sinner from its own action. 
With what color of reason can it be said that God forces 
a man into perdition, when this is all lie does to him ? 
that God hinders a man from faith and repentance, when 
he lets him entirely alone ? To put the proposed expla- 
nation and caveat into the Confessional doctrine of pret- 
ention, would be like writing under Landseer's lions, 
" These are not sheep," or under Paul Potter's bull, 
" This is not a horse." 

The pretention of a sinner is not his exclusion from 
salvation. Exclusion is a positive act ; but pretention is 
a negative one. When God gives special regenerating 



PURE AND MIXED 



59 



grace to only one of two persons, he does not work upon 
the other to prevent him from believing and repenting 
under the operation of the common grace which he has 
bestowed upon both alike. He merely leaves the other 
to his own free will to decide the matter; assuring him 
that if he repents he will forgive him ; that if he believes 
he will save him. The bestowment of common grace 
upon the non-elect shows that non-election does not ex- 
clude from the kingdom of heaven by Divine efficiency, 
because common grace is not only an invitation to believe 
and repent, but an actual help towards it ; and a help that 
is nullified solely by the resistance of the non-elect, and 
not by anything in the nature of common grace, or by 
any preventive action of God. The fault of the failure 
of common grace to save the sinner, is chargeable to the 
sinner alone ; and he has no right to plead a fault of his 
own as the reason why he is entitled to special grace. It 
is absurd for him to contend that God has no right to re- 
fuse him regenerating grace, because he has defeated the 
Divine mercy in common grace. The true way out of the 
difficulty for the sinner is, not to demand regenerating 
grace as a debt by denying that God has the right to 
withhold it, but to confess the sinful abuse and frustra- 
tion of common grace, and to cry with the leper : " Lord, 
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." 

Having thus demonstrated the Scriptural and self-con- 
sistent character of the doctrine of decrees as contained in 
the Westminster Standards, we turn now to consider two 
erroneous conclusions that are drawn from it, which are 
urged as reasons for their revision : First, that it shuts 
out the entire heathen world from Christ's redemption ; 
and, second, that it implies the damnation of a part of 
those who die in infancy. 

Some advocates of revision seem, unintentionally prob- 



60 



CALVINISM : 



ably, to load down the Confession with faults not belong- 
ing to it. They put the worst interpretation upon its 
terms and phraseology ; insist that its defenders have no 
right to its necessary implications and natural inferences 
in determining what it really means ; and that an analytic 
and positive affirmation of every particular point must 
be found in it. Interpreting in this prejudiced maimer, 
they assert that the Standards do not declare the universal 
love and compassion of God ; that they teach that God 
creates some men in order to damn them ; 1 that their doc- 
trine of election discourages ministers from making the 
universal offer of Christ's salvation, and hinders sinners 
from accepting it ; and that he who adopts them as they 
read cannot consistently believe that any of the heathen 
are saved, and that no dying infants are lost. They carry 
a wrong idea of election and reprobation into their exege- 
sis of the Standards. They suppose that these necessarily 
imply that only a very few are elected, and that very many 
are reprobated. But there is nothing in the nature of 
either election or pretention, that determines the number 
of each ; nothing that implies that the elect must be the 
minority, and the non-elect the majority, or the converse. 

1 A false exegesis of Romans 9 : 20 is sometimes employed to prove 
that God creates men sinners. " Shall the thing- formed {irXicrfxa) say- 
to him that formed (ir\d(ravTi) it, Why hast thou made me thus ? " does 
not mean, "Shall the thing created say to him that created it, Why hast 
thou created, me thus ? " Creation ex aihilo would require kt'ktis, not 
irxd<x/xa. The latter term denotes only the formative act of a moulder, 
not the supernatural act of a creator. The whole sinful mass of man- 
kind whom God created holy, have become sinful by their own act, and 
lie in his hand like clay in the hands of the potter. Compare Isa. 29 : 
16 ; 45 : 9. The potter, as such, does not give the clay its properties, 
but merely shapes the clay into vessels of honor or dishonor as he 
pleases. Says Hodge, in loco, " It is to be borne in mind, that Paul 
does not here speak of the right of God over his creatures as creatures, 
but as sin fid creatures." Compare Shedd : On Romans, 9 : 20. 



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61 



The size of each circle depends upon the will of him who 
draws it. God, conceivably, might have elected the whole 
human family without an exception, as Schleiermaeher 
says he did. Or, conceivably, he might have reprobated 
the whole human family, because lie was not in justice 
obliged to save it. There is nothing in the nature of elec- 
tion that makes it inapplicable to the heathen, or of pret- 
ention. God may elect and regenerate a heathen if he 
please, or he may leave him in the sin which he loves. 
And the same is true of the ideas of election and preten- 
tion as related to dying infants. Since everything in this 
matter depends wholly upon the sovereign will of God, he 
may regulate his choice as he pleases. He may choose 
dying infants as individuals, as he does adults ; or he may 
choose them as a class. And he might reject dying in- 
fants as individuals, as he does adults ; or he might reject 
them as a class. For since infants like adults have a sin- 
ful nature, and, in the phrase of the Auburn Declaration, 
"in order to be saved, need redemption by the blood of 
Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost," they re- 
quire the exercise of unmerited mercy, which on grounds 
of justice might be withheld. 

We cannot, therefore, determine from the mere idea of 
election how many are elected, or from that of pretention 
how many are passed by. This question can be answered 
only by God himself, and this answer, so far as he has 
vouchsafed to give it, is contained in his word. That 
the Scriptures plainly teach that the total result of Christ's 
redemption will be a triumphant victory over the king- 
dom of Satan, and that the number of the redeemed will 
be vastly greater than that of the lost, we shall assume. 
It is also plainly taught in Scripture, that God's ordinary 
method is to gather his elect from the evangelized part of 
mankind. Does Scripture also furnish ground for the 



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belief, that God also gathers some of his elect by an ex- 
traordinary method from among the unevangelized, and 
without the written word saves some adult heathen M by 
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost '{ n We contend that the Confession so under- 
stands the Scriptures, in its declaration that there are some 
" elect persons [other than infants] who are incapable of 
being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.'' To 
refer the " incapacity ? ' here spoken of to that of idiots 
and insane persons, is an example of the unnatural exe- 
gesis of the Standards to which we have alluded. The 
hypothesis that the Confession teaches that there are elect 
and non-elect idiots, and elect and non-elect maniacs, is 
remarkable. It is incredible for two reasons. First, 
idiots and maniacs are not moral agents, and therefore as 
such are neither damnable nor salvable. They would be 
required to be made rational and sane, before they could 
be classed with the rest of mankind. It is utterly im- 
probable that the Assembly took into account this very 
small number of individuals respecting whose destiny so 
little is known. It would be like taking into account 
abortions and untimely births. Secondly, these " elect 
persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by 
the ministry of the word," are contrasted in the imme- 
diate context with ; * others not elected, who although 
they may be called by the ministry of the word never 
truly come to Christ ; " that is to say, they are contrasted 
with rational and sane adults in evangelized regions. But 
idiots and maniacs could not be put into such a contrast. 
The ' ; incapacity " ? therefore must be that of circum- 
stances, not of mental faculty. A man in the heart of 
un evangelized Africa is incapable of hearing the written 
word, in the sense that a man in Xew York is incapable 
of hearing the roar of London. 



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63 



Consequently, the Confession, in tins section, intends 
to teach that there are some unevangelized men who are 
" regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit " 
without " the ministry of the written word," and who 
differ, in this respect from evangelized men who are re- 
generated in connection with it. There are these two 
classes of regenerated persons among God's elect. They 
are both alike in being born, " not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
They are both alike in respect to faith and repentance, 
because these are the, natural and necessary effects of re- 
generation. Both alike feel and confess sin ; and both 
alike hope in the Divine mercy, though the regenerate 
heathen has not yet had Christ presented to him. As 
this is the extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit, little 
is said bearing upon it in Scripture. But something is 
said. God's promise to Abraham was, that in him should 
"all the families of the earth be blessed " (Gen. 12:3). 
St. Paul teaches that " they are not all Israel which are 
of Israel" (Rom. 9 : 0) ; and that "they which are of 
faith, the same are the children of Abraham " (Gal. 3 : 7). 
Our Lord affirms that " many shall come from the east 
and west, the north and the south, and shall sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of 
heaven" (Matt. 8 : 11). Christ saw both penitence and 
faith in the unevangelized centurion, respecting whom he 
said, " I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel " 
(Matt. 8: 5-10). The faith of the "woman of Canaan," 
an alien and stranger to the Jewish people and covenant, 
was tested more severely than that of any person who 
came to him in the days cf his flesh, and of it the gra- 
cious Redeemer exclaimed, <; O woman, great is thy faith ! " 
These two classes of the regenerate have their typical 
heads in Scripture. Says Kurtz, " Of those who are 



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CALVINISM : 



blessed in the seed of Abraham, Naomi represents the 
people of God who are to proceed from the ancient peo- 
ple of the covenant, and Ruth represents those proceed- 
ing from the heathen world." That the Church is not 
to expect and rely upon this extraordinary work of the 
Spirit, it is needless to say. That this work is extensive, 
and the number of saved unevangelized adults is great, 
cannot be affirmed. But that all the adult heathen are 
lost is not the teaching of the Bible or of the Westmin- 
ster Standards. 

The declaration in Confession x. 4, and Larger Cate- 
chism, 60, does not refer at all to the heathen as such, 
but only to a certain class of persons to be found both 
in Christendom and heathendom, and probably more 
numerously in the former than in the latter. The " men 
not professing the Christian religion " are those who 
reject it, either in spirit, or formally and actually ; that 
is to say, legalists of every age and nation, evangelized 
or unevangelized, who expect future happiness by fol- 
lowing " the light of nature " and reason, and the ethical 
" religion they do profess," instead of by confessing sin 
and hoping in the Divine mercy. The Jewish Pharisee, 
the Roman Julian and Antoninus, the self-satisfied Buddh- 
ist sage following the " light of Asia," the Mohamme- 
dan saint despising Christianity, the English Hume and 
Mill, all of every race and clime who pride themselves 
on personal character and morality, and lack the humility 
and penitence that welcome the gospel, are the class 
spoken of in these declarations. They press no more, 
and probably less, upon the heathen than upon the 
Christian world ; because the most hostile and intense 
rejection of the doctrines of grace is to be found in Chris- 
tian countries, rather than in Pagan. They do not shut 
out of the kingdom of heaven any heathen who lias the 



PURE AND MIXED 



65 



spirit of the publican, but do shut out every heathen and 
every nominal Christian who is destitute of it. The 
object of this section of the Confession, which is the 
same as the eighteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles, is 
to teach that no human creature, evangelized or un- 
evangelized, can be saved on any but evangelical princi- 
ples ; namely, by unmerited grace, not by personal merit. 
It is only another way of proclaiming St. Paul's doc- 
trine, that " by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be 
justified." 

That this is the correct understanding of the West- 
minster Standards is corroborated by the fact that the 
Calvinism of the time held that God has his elect among 
the heathen. The Second Helvetic Confession (i. 7), 
teaches it. Zanchius, whose treatise on Predestination is 
of the strictest type, asserts it. Witsius and others sug- 
gest that the grace of God in election is wide and far 
reaching. The elder Calvinists held with the strictest 
rigor that no man is saved outside of the circle of election 
and regeneration, but they did not make that circle to be 
the small, narrow, insignificant circumference which their 
opponents charge upon them. And there is no reason to 
believe that the Westminster Assembly differed from the 
Calvinism of the time. 

And this brings us to the subject of " elect infants." 
There is no dispute that the Confession teaches that there 
are " elect dying infants." Does it also teach that there 
are " non-elect dying infants % " In other words, does 
the phrase "elect infants" imply that there are "non- 
elect infants," as the phrase "elect adults" does that 
there are " non-elect adults ? " This depends upon 
whether the cases are alike in all particulars. The argu- 
ment is from analogy, and analogical reasoning requires 
a resemblance and similarity upon which to rest. But the 

5 



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CALVINISM : 



Confession directs attention to a great and marked diver- 
sity between infant and adult regeneration, which sets off 
the two classes from one another, making some things 
true of one that are not of the other. The Confession 
points at and signalizes the striking difference in the 
'manner in which the Holy Ghost operates, in each in- 
stance. Infants are incapable of the outward call and 
common grace : adults are capable of both. Consequent- 
ly an elect infant dying in infancy is " regenerated by 
Christ, through the Spirit, 7 '' without the outward call and 
common grace : but an elect adult is ** regenerated by 
Christ through the Sprit." in connection with the ex- 
ternal call and common grace, and after both have been 
frustrated by him. Election and non-election in the case 
of adults is the selection of some and omission of others 
who are alike guilty of resisting the ordinary antecedents 
of regeneration. Election in the case of dying infants 
is wholly apart from this. There being this great dis- 
similarity between the two classes, it does not follow 
that every particular that is true of one must be of the 
other : that because election is individual in the instance 
of adults it must necessarily be so in that of infants ; 
that because adults are not elected as a class infants can- 
not be. The state of things in which the regeneration of 
an adult occurs, namely after conviction of sin and more 
or less opposition to the truth, is entirely diverse from 
that in which the regeneration of a dying infant occurs : 
namely, in unconsciousness and without conviction of sin. 
The only form of grace that is possible to the dying 
infant is regenerating grace, and the only call possible 
is the effectual call. If therefore God manifests any 
grace at all to the dying infant, it must be special and 
saving; and if he call him at all, he must call him effect- 
ually. 



PURE AND MIXED 



67 



'Now, since the authors of the Confession have them- 
selves distinctly specified such a peculiar feature in the 
regeneration of the dying infant, it is plain that they re- 
garded it as differing in some respects from that of adults, 
and intended to disconnect it from that of adults and 
consider it by itself. For why should they take pains, 
when speaking of elect infants, to call attention to the fact 
that the " Holy Ghost worketh when, and where, and Jtow 
he pleaseth," if they did not mean to signalize the ex- 
traordinariness of the Divine action in infant regenera- 
tion ? And if infant regeneration is extraordinary in not 
having been preceded by the usual antecedents of common 
grace and the outward call, why may it not be extraordi- 
nary in being universal and not particular ? that of a class 
and not of individuals ? Does not the singularity that 
distinguishes the infant in regard to regeneration without 
conviction of sin, suggest that of electing the whole class ? 
But what is far more conclusive, does not the fact that 
the Assembly does not limit infant election by infant pret- 
ention, as it limits adult election by adult pretention, 
actually prove that there is this great diversity in the two 
cases ? Does not the fact that the Assembly, while ex- 
plicitly, and with a carefulness that is irritating to many 
persons, balancing and guarding the election of adults by 
pretention, does not do so with the election of infants, 
show beyond doubt that they believed their election to be 
unlimited, and that no dying infants are " passed by " in 
the bestowment of regenerating grace ? We have already 
seen that the proposed omission of pretention, so as to 
leave only election in the case of adults, would make their 
election universal, and save the whole class without excep- 
tion. The actual omission of it by the Assembly in the 
case of dying infants has the same effect. It is morally 
certain that if the Assembly had intended to discriminate 



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CALVINISM : 



between elect and non-elect infants, as they do between 
elect and non-elect adults, they would have taken pains to 
do so, and would have inserted a corresponding clause 
concerning infant pretention to indicate it. Whoever 
contends that they believed that pretention applies to in- 
fants, is bound to explain their silence upon this point. 
Had infant election been explicitly limited by infant pret- 
ention in the Confession, it would have been impossible 
for any candid expounder of it to hold that it permits sub- 
scribers to it to believe in the salvation of all dying in- 
fants. But Calvinistic divines for the last century or 
more have put this interpretation upon this section of the 
Confession, namely, that infant election is not individual 
but classical, and we think they are justified in so doing 
by the remarkable omission in this case. 1 

On the face of it, the thing looks probable. The case 
of the adult, in which there is both the outward call and 
the effectual, both common grace and regenerating, may 
be governed by the principle of individuality ; while that 
of the infant, in which there is only the effectual call and 
regenerating grace, may be governed by the principle of 
community. Of those who have had the outward call 
and have rejected it. some may be taken and others left ; 
while of those who have not had the outward call and 
have not rejected it, all may be taken. It is election in 
both instances : that is, the decision of God according to 
the counsel of his own will. In one case. God sovereignly 
decides to elect some : in the other, to elect all. And it 

1 Respecting the necessity of construing the Confession as teaching 
that there are non-elect infants, Dr. Schaff remarks as follows : <l The 
Confession nowhere speaks of reprobate infants, and the existence of 
such is not necessarily implied by way of distinction, although it prdb- 
atty was in the minds of the framers, as their private opinion, which 
they wisely withheld from the Confession " (Creeds of Christendom, i 
795). 



PURE AND MIXED 



69 



is unmerited mercy, in botli instances ; because God is not 
bound and obliged by justice to pardon and eradicate the 
sin of an infant any more than that of an adult. And 
there is nothing in the fact that an infant has not resisted 
common grace, that entitles it to the exercise of special 
grace. In the transaction, God is moved wholly by his 
spontaneous and infinite mercy. He does an act to which 
he is not compelled by the sense of duty or of justice, 
either to himself or to sinners, but which he loves to do, 
and longs to do, because of his infinite pity and compas- 
sion. 1 

That many of the elder Calvinists believed that there 
are some non-elect infants is undeniable ; and that in the 
long and heated discussions of the seventeenth century 
between Calvinists and Arminians, and between Calvinists 
themselves, many hard sayings were uttered by individual 
theologians which may be construed to prove that man 
is necessitated to sin, that God is the author of sin, and 
that the majority of mankind are lost, is equally undeni- 
able. But the Westminster Confession must be held re- 
sponsible for only what is declared on its pages. The 
question is not, whether few or many of the members of 
the Assembly held that some dying infants are lost, but 
whether the Confession so asserts; is not, whether any 
Calvinists of that day, in endeavoring to show how God 
decrees sin, may not have come perilously near represent- 
ing him as doing it by direct efficiency, but whether the 
Reformed and Westminster creeds do this. 



1 The assumption that God is obliged by justice to offer salvation to 
all mankind, and to redeem them all, precludes all gratitude and praise 
for redemption, on their part. Why should they give thanks for a favor 
that is due to them, and which it is the duty of God to bestow ? Chris- 
tians adore *' the riches of God's grace " because it is utterly unclaim- 
able on their part, and unobligated on his. 



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CALVINISM : 



The rigor of the theology of the elder Calvinists has 
been exaggerated. They took a wide and large view of 
the possible extent of election. Owen is as strict as most 
of them. Bat in arguing against the Arminians, in sup- 
port of the guilt and condemnability of original sin, he 
says : " Observe that in this inquiry of the desert of orig- 
inal sin, the question is not, What shall be the certain lot 
of those who depart this life under the guilt of this si?i 
only f but what this hereditary and native corruption 
doth deserve, in all those in whom it is? For as St. Paul 
saith, 'We judge not them that are without' (especially 
infants), 1 Cor. 5 : 13. But for the demerit of it in the 
justice of God, our Saviour expressly affirmeth that 'un- 
less a man be born again, he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God.' Again, we are assured that no unclean 
thing shall enter into heaven (Rev. 21). Children are 
polluted with hell-deserving uncleanness, and therefore 
unless it be purged with the blood of Christ, they have 
no interest in everlasting happiness. By this means sin 
is come upon all to condemnation, and yet we do not 
peremptorily censure to hell all infants departing out of 
this world without the laver of regeneration [i.e., baptism], 
the ordinary means of waiving the punishment due to 
this pollution. That is the question de facto, which we 
before rejected : yea, and two ways there are whereby 
God saveth such infants, snatching them like brands from 
the fire. First, by interesting them into the covenant, if 
their immediate or remote parents have been believers. 
He is a God of them, and of their seed, extending his 
mercy unto a thousand generations of them that fear him. 
Secondly, by his grace of election, which is most free 
and not tied to any conditions ; by which I make no 
doubt but God taketh many unto him in Christ whose 
parents never kneiv, or had been despisers of the gospel. 



PURE AND MIXED 



71 



And this is the doctrine of our Church, agreeable to the 
Scriptures affirming the desert of original sin to be God's 
wrath and damnation" (Owen: Arminianism, Ch. vii.). 
Tiiis is the salvation of infants by both covenanted and un- 
covenanted mercy, and Owen maintains that it is a tenet 
of Calvinism. That he does not assert the classical elec- 
tion of infants is true ; but he asserts the individual elec- 
tion of some infants outside of the Church. 

Such, then, is the Westminster doctrine of the Divine 
Decree. It is the common Augustino-Calvinistic doc- 
trine. Xo part of it can be spared, and retain the integ- 
rity of the system. Whatever may have been the inten- 
tion of the few first proposers of revision ; or whatever 
may be the intention of the many various advocates of it 
who have joined them ; the grave question before all 
parties now is, Whether the Presbyterian Church shall 
adhere to the historical Calvinism with which all its past 
usefulness and honor are inseparably associated, or whether 
it shall renounce it as an antiquated system which did 
good service in its day, but can do so no longer. The 
votes of the presbyteries within the coming six months 
will answer this question. 



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CALVINISM : 



VI. 

PRETERITION NECESSARY TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD 
IN ELECTION 1 

It is generally conceded by those who advocate a revi- 
sion of the Confession, that " the sovereignty of God in 
election " must be retained as a fundamental truth. Sev- 
eral presbyteries have voted for revision, with the explicit 
declaration that this part of the third chapter must stand ; 
and they have at the same time voted to strike out the 
doctrine of preterition. Among them is the large and in- 
fluential presbytery of New York. With the highest re- 
spect for our brethren and copresbyters, and with sincere 
regret to be obliged to differ from the majority, we pro- 
ceed to raise and answer the question, Whether the doc- 
trine of " the sovereignty of God in election " can be held 
unimpaired and in its integrity, if the tenet of pretention 
is omitted from " the system of doctrine contained in the 
Scriptures." 

The presbytery have declared to the General Assembly : 

1, That " they deprecate most earnestly all such changes 
as would impair the essential articles of our faith ; " and 

2, That " they desire the third chapter of the Confession, 
after the first section, to be so recast as to include these 
things only : The sovereignty of God in election ; the gen- 
eral love of God for all mankind ; the salvation in Christ 
Jesus provided for all, and to be preached to every creat- 
ure." In this recasting, they specify several sections of 
chapter third which they would strike out, and among 



1 New York Observer, March 6, 1890. 



PUKE AND MIXED 



73 



them is the section which declares that God " passes by " 
some of mankind, and " ordains them to dishonor and 
wrath for their sin." According to this deliverance, the 
presbytery of New York supposes that it can hold the 
doctrine of " the sovereignty of God in election " unim- 
paired and in all its essential features, while denying and 
rejecting the doctrine of pretention. An examination of 
the nature and definition of " sovereignty," we think, will 
show that this is impossible. 

Sovereignty is a comprehensive term. It contains sev- 
eral elements. First it denotes supremacy. A sovereign 
ruler is supreme in his dominions. All other rulers are 
under him. Secondly, sovereignty denotes independence. 
Says Woolsey, " In the intercourse of nations certain 
states have a position of entire independence of others. 
They have the power of self-government, that is, of inde- 
pendence of all other states as far as their own territory 
and citizens are concerned. This power of independent 
action in external and internal relations constitutes com- 
plete sovereignty " (Political Science, i. 204). Thirdly, 
sovereignty denotes optional power ; that is, the power to 
act or not in a given instance. It is more particularly 
with reference to this latter characteristic of free alterna- 
tive decision, that " the sovereignty of God in election " is 
spoken of. In his election of a sinner to salvation, God 
as supreme, independent, and sovereign, acts with entire 
liberty of decision, and not as obliged and shut up to one 
course of action. 

This is the common understanding and definition of 
sovereignty as applied to decisions and acts. Says Black- 
stone : " By the sovereign power is meant the power of 
making laws ; for wherever that power resides all other 
powers must conform to, and be directed by it, whatever 
appearance the outward form and administration of the 



74 



CALVINISM : 



government may put on. For it is at any time in the 
ojrtion of the legislature to alter that form and adminis- 
tration by a new edict or rule, and put the execution of 
the law into whatever hands it pleases, by constituting 
one, or a few, or many executive magistrates" (Introduc- 
tion, 2). Blackstone gives the same definition of sover- 
eignty, when it is vested in a king (Book II., ch. vii.). 
The king has no superior to oblige or compel him to one 
course of action. He has independent and optional 
power. This is the reason why a monarchy is inferior to 
a republic, as an ideal of government, and the secret of 
the steady tendency to the latter form of government, in 
the earth. Sovereign, supreme, independent, and op- 
tional power is too great a power to be lodged in the 
hands of one man. Its safest deposit is in the hands of 
all the people. 

The pardoning power is a sovereign power, and this 
implies choice between two alternatives. If the gover- 
nor of New York has the power to grant a pardon to a 
criminal, but not the power to refuse it, he is not 
sovereign in the matter. If of two criminals, he cannot 
pardon one and leave the other under the sentence of the 
court, he is not sovereign in the matter. When it is said 
that in a democracy the sovereign power is vested in the 
people, the meaning is that the people have the right 
to make such a constitution and laws as they please. No 
one would contend that the people of New York have 
sovereign power in the case, if they are obliged to put 
imprisonment for debt, or any other particular statute, 
into their code. A "sovereignty " that has no alternative 
is none at all. 

God is a sovereign, and the highest of all. He may 
create a universe or not, as he pleases. Were he obliged 
or compelled to create, he would not be sovereign in 



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75 



creating. He may arrange and order his universe as he 
pleases. If he were confined to but one order, he would 
not be sovereign in his providence. But not to waste 
time on these self-evident generalities, we come to the 
case in hand : the " sovereignty of God in election" 
The question is, Whether God is "sovereign" in electing, 
regenerating, and saving a sinner, if he has no option in 
the matter ? if he cannot " pass by " the sinner, and 
leave him unregenerate, unpardoned, and unsaved ? 
One would think that such a question as this could have 
but one answer in the negative, had not a majority of the 
presbytery of New York answered it in the affirmative. 
The Westminster Confession declares that " the sover- 
eignty of God in election " means, that he may elect or 
pass by the sinner as he pleases. The Revised Con- 
fession declares that it means, that he may elect him but 
not pass him by. The Old Confession declares that sover- 
eignty means, that God may bestow regenerating grace 
upon a sinner who is resisting common grace, or may not 
bestow it. The New Confession declares that it means, 
that he may bestow regenerating grace upon him, but 
may not refuse to bestow it. The Old Confession de- 
clares that sovereignty means, that God may pardon the 
sinner or not, as he pleases. The New Confession de- 
clares that it means, that he may pardon him but not 
deny him a pardon. 

Now we ask, What sovereignty lias God in the salva- 
tion of the sinner, if he has no alternative in regard to 
election, regeneration, and pardon ? if eternal justice re- 
quires that he elect, and forbids that he pass by ? if 
eternal justice requires that he regenerate, and forbids 
him to leave in unregeneracy ? if eternal justice requires 
that he pardon, and forbids him to refuse to pardon? 
To strike out pretention from the Confession, is to de- 



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CALVINISM : 



clare that it is an unscriptural doctrine, and to brand it 
as error. And to assert " the sovereignty of God in 
election " after having done this, is to assert that an act 
that has no alternative is a sovereign act. 

Bnt God himself has decided the question. He asserts 
his sovereign right to optional decision in the matter of 
human salvation. In that wonderful description of his 
being and attributes which he gave to Moses, among 
other declarations he says, " I will be gracious to whom I 
will be gracious, and will shew mercy to whom I will shew 
mercy" (Ex. 33 : 19). In this solemn pronnnciamento 
with which he prefaced the whole work of human salva- 
tion, he distinctly declares that he is under no obligation 
to redeem sinful men, but that whatever he does in the 
premises is of his own unobliged, free, and sovereign 
mercy and decision. Still more explicitly, in what is 
perhaps the most terrible passage in all Scripture, God 
asserts that he will pass by and leave in their sin some 
who have refused his common call, and frustrated his 
common grace. 4i Because I have called, and ye refused ; 
I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; but 
ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of 
my reproof ; I also will laugh at your calamity ; I will 
mock when your fear cometh. Then shall they call upon 
me, but I will not answer ; they shall seek me early, but 
they shall not find me " (Prov. 1 : 21-26, 27). God incar- 
nate teaches the same truth, that " one shall be taken and 
the other left" (Luke IT: 3J-36). And St. Paul recites 
the words of God to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom 
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I 
will have compassion," as a conclusive demonstration of 
the Divine sovereignty in salvation. 

The only instance of the retention of election, and re- 
jection of pretention, in a creed, is that of the Cumber- 



PURE AND MIXED 



77 



land Presbyterians. Our Arnrinian brethren are con- 
sistent and logical, like the Westminster Standards, in 
teaching both election and pretention ; only they assert 
that both are conditional. Men are elected because of 
faith, and are passed by because of unbelief. There has 
never been any proposition to revise pretention out of an 
Arminian creed. Arminius, Episcopius, Limborch, Wes- 
ley, and Watson understand that election necessarily im- 
plies the antithetic non-election. 1 A proposition to revise 
the Confession so that it would teach conditional election 
and pretention, would be self-consistent but anti-Calvin- 
istic ; but the proposition to revise it so as to declare that 
God elects but does not pass by sinners, is neither con- 
sistency nor Calvinism. If adopted, the Northern Presby- 
terian Church will have an illogical and mutilated creed, 
and will resemble a wounded eagle attempting to fly with 
but one wing. 

1 According to Brandt, the Remonstrants defined predestination as 
follows: "God hath decreed from all eternity to elect those to ever- 
lasting life, who through his grace believe in Jesus Christ and persevere 
in faith and obedience ; and on the contrary hath resolved to reject the 
unconverted and unbelieving to everlasting damnation " (Reformation 
in the Low Countries, Book xxi.). 



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CALVINISM : 



VII. 

PRETERIT10N AND THE LOPSIDED VIEW OF THE DIVINE 

DECREE 

The doctrine of the Divine decree is inseparably con- 
nected with that of the manifestation of the Divine glory, 
because the latter is the end and aim of the former. 
Some Presbyteries recommend a one-sided fractional view 
of the Divine decree, by striking out reprobation from the 
Westminster Confession and leaving election as it now 
stands. In order to determine whether this view of the 
Divine decree is Scriptural or rational, it is necessary to 
determine what is meant by the manifestation of the 
Divine glory, and whether it can be secured by manifest- 
ing only the mercy of God to the exclusion of his justice. 

The " glory of God'' means either his essential or his 
manifested glory. It is the manifested glory that is in- 
tended when the question is asked, whether God does 
everything for his own glory ; whether in all his works 
his object is to reveal to angels and men the intrinsic and 
inherent glory of his being and nature. One would say, 
on the face of it, that this is no question at all. What 
else should God do anything for, but to show that he is an 
infinitely perfect and good being? but to exhibit in vari- 
ous ways his natural and moral qualities? 

1. The essential glory of God means all that is glorious 
in God. In the Scriptures " glory " is a general term to 
denote the sum-total of all the qualities that constitute the 
Divine excellence. The nature and attributes of God are 



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79 



the glory of God. They make him a glorious being. In 
this sense the " glory of God " is only another name for 
infinite perfection ; only another name for the entire ag- 
gregate of the Divine attributes. Sometimes the phrase 
lias chief reference to God's natural attributes, as seen in 
the material universe. " The heavens declare the glory 
of God." " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name 
in all the earth ! who hast set thy glory above [or upon] 
the heavens." Such texts as these speak of the glory, or 
glorious excellence, of God as displayed in creation and 
providence. Sometimes the principal reference is to 
God's moral attributes, as seen in redemption. " I will 
send those that escape from them unto the nations, and 
they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles." " De- 
clare his glory among the heathen." In Eph. 1 : 14, 
"The redemption of the purchased possession is unto the 
praise of God's glory." In Phil. 1 : 11, "The fruits of 
righteousness which are by Jesus Christ are unto the glory 
and praise of God." Such Scriptures as these show that 
the " glory of God" does not mean self-applause but 
moral excellence ; and that when God is said to do all 
tilings for his own glory, the meaning is that he does 
them for the purpose of revealing in nature and grace his 
infinite perfections. When therefore the phrase is de- 
fined in accordance with its use in the Bible, and with the 
idea of an infinitely perfect being, it has nothing that 
should excite opposition. There is not the slightest rea- 
son for confounding it with human vanity, or the selfish 
love of fame among men. 

The essential glory of God is a fixed quantity. There 
can be neither increase nor diminution of it. When man 
is commanded, " whether he eat or drink, or whatever he 
does, to do all to the glory of God," it is not meant that 
his action can add anything to the inherent glory of God, 



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CALVINISM : 



and make him more glorious intrinsically than he was 
before. In respect to the essential glory of God, neither 
angel nor man can do anything. But the intrinsic and 
immutable excellence of God is capable of being mani- 
fested to angels and men, and also, in a secondary manner, 
by angels and men ; for when angels and men recognize 
and acknowledge the glory of God by their acts of obedi- 
ence and adoration, they too declare and set it forth in an 
inferior degree. 

2. Secondly, the essential glory of God is the founda- 
tion of all worship. It is because the Supreme Being 
lias this constellation of attributes, th is sum-total of in- 
finite perfections which is grouped under the name of 
"glory," that he is worthy of adoration. If a single one 
of these attributes were wanting, the Divine glory would 
be defective ; and a defective Being would not be worthy 
of the hallelujahs of heaven. Those who deny, either 
theoretically or practically, the Divine holiness and justice, 
and affirm only the Divine benevolence and mercy, muti- 
late the Divine nature and destroy the Divine glory. They 
metamorphose the Supreme Being, and demolish the 
completeness, symmetry, and harmony of his nature, and 
render worship impossible. The grandest of all music, 
the lofty chorals and anthems of the Christian Church, the 
" Te Deum Laudamus " and the " Gloria Patri," sup- 
pose all of the Divine attributes, and are prompted by the 
full-orbed glory of God. 

3. Thirdly, since all of the Divine attributes go to make 
up the total glory of God, they must all of them be mani- 
fested if there is to be a complete manifestation of the 
Divine perfection. It is at this point that the defective 
view of the Divine decree which is now sought to be intro- 
duced into the Westminster Confession takes its start. 
The reviser of this class concedes that the Divine glory is 



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81 



manifested when God in the exercise of his benevolence 
and mercy elects many sinners to everlasting life, but 
denies that it is also manifested when God in the exercise 
of his holiness and justice leaves some sinners to their own 
free will, and permits them to go down voluntarily to 
eternal death. He declares that election is a true doctrine, 
and would have it retained in the Presbyterian creed ; but 
that reprobation is a " horrible " doctrine, and would have 
it stricken out. When the Confession (iii. 3) asserts that 
" by the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, 
some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting 
life," he says, Amen. But when it also asserts that " by 
the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, 
some men and angels are foreordained to everlasting 
death," he rejects the statement as dishonoring to God. 
That God intends from all eternity to display his mercy 
in pardoning a sinner, is unobjectionable; but that he 
also intends from all eternity to display his justice in 
punishing a sinner, is vehemently opposed. The Divine 
love for the soul of man he thinks is worthy of God ; but 
not the Divine wrath against the sin of man. The revis- 
er of this class makes a selection among the Divine attri- 
butes, and confines the exhibition of the Divine glory in 
the Divine decree to them. 

Now this one-sided and lopsided view of the Divine de- 
cree, is founded upon an erroneous view of the nature of 
retributive justice. It virtually implies that retributive 
justice does not belong to the congeries of attributes which 
constitutes the total glory of God ; and that to manifest 
it by leaving some sinners to their own free will in sin- 
ning, and then punishing them according to the just de- 
sert of their sin, is not a manifestation of glory but a dis- 
grace. But the manifestation of justice is as truly a 
manifestation of the glory of God as the manifestation of 
6 



82 



CALVINISM : 



mercy, provided both attributes belong to the Divine 
nature, and that both are infinitely excellent. The decree 
to manifest it has nothing to do with the nature of the at- 
tribute in either instance. If it is proper for God to in- 
flict retribution at all, it is proper for him to intend to do 
so from all eternity. And if it is proper for God to show 
mercy at all, it is proper for him to intend to do so from 
all eternity. Justice is as morally excellent as mercy ; 
and holiness as benevolence. All of the divine attributes 
are perfect. No one is inferior to the others in this re- 
spect, because infinity characterizes them all. When God 
punishes impenitent and hardened Satan, and all beings 
who have his impenitent and hardened spirit, his act is as 
worthy of praise and adoration as when he pardons peni- 
tent sinners through Jesus Christ. " I heard a great voice 
of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia ; Salvation, and 
glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God ; 
for true and righteous are his judgments" (Rev. 19: 
1, 2). 

The view of retributive justice which we are criticising 
lias no support either in Scripture or in reason. St. Paul 
asserts that "the ministration of death written and en- 
graven in stones was glorious ; " and that " the ministra- 
tion of condemnation is glory" (2 Cor. 3: 7, 9). The 
ministration of death is the ministration of justice; the 
infliction of the righteous penalty, " The soul that sin- 
neth it shall die." And the inspired apostle affirms that 
it is intrinsically glorious and exhibits the glory of God. 
It is true that he adds that " the ministration of the 
Spirit" and "the ministration of [imputed] righteous- 
ness " " exceed in glory " the ministration of condem- 
nation ; that is, that the gospel shows more of the Di- 
vine attributes, and so is a fuller manifestation of the 
Divine plenitude of perfection than the legal and puni- 



PUKE AND MIXED 



S3 



tive dispensation is. But in so saying, he does not retract 
his proposition, that " the ministration of condemnation is 
glory." There is no need of quoting the multitude of 
texts that teach that holiness and justice are as grand and 
venerable attributes in the Divine nature, as benevolence 
and mercy. They excite the emotions of praise and 
adoration in the highest heavens. The wing-veiled sera- 
phim emphasize these attributes in particular when they 
worship God in their trisagion, " Holy, holy, holy is the 
Lord of Hosts." The redeemed " sins; the song of Moses 
and the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy 
works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, 
thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, 
and glorify thy name ? for thou only art holy " (Rev. 
15: 3, 4). 

The argument from reason is equally conclusive that 
holiness and justice constitute an essential part of the Di- 
vine character, and are august attributes that contribute 
to the Divine honor and glory, and therefore ought to 
be manifested. They are the attributes that underlie 
all government and legislation, human and divine. The 
science of law, which is next in dignity to that of theol- 
ogy, and in some respects is as abstruse and logical, and 
should therefore share in the abuse so frequently showered 
upon systematic theology, is built out of this quarry ; and 
in the familiar but ever lof t} r and noble phrase of Hooker, 
the seat of law is the bosom of God, and the voice of law 
is the harmony of the world. 

It is therefore both unscriptural and irrational to con- 
fine the manifestation of God's glory to one side of God's 
decree, and to some selected and favorite attributes. 
Within the three provinces of creation, providence, and 
redemption all of the attributes are manifested ; and more 
of them are manifested in redemption than in creation and 



84 



CALVINISM : 



providence. And this is the best reason that can be sug- 
gested for the permission of sin. Without sin there could 
be no redemption from sin, and if there had been no re- 
demption from sin that marvellous union and combina- 
tion and harmonizing of mercy with justice in the vicari- 
ous sacrifice of God incarnate and crucified, could have 
had no manifestation whatever. All this side of the 
glory of God would have been kept secret and hidden in 
the depths of the Godhead, and been utterly unknown to 
angels and men. 

And here let it be noticed that the question, how many 
are elected and how many are reprobate, has nothing to 
do with the question whether God may either elect or 
reprobate sinners. If it is intrinsically right for him 
either to elect or not to elect, either to save or not to save 
free moral agents who by their own fault have plunged 
themselves into sin and ruin, numbers are of no account 
in establishing the rightness. And if it is intrinsically 
wrong, numbers are of no account in establishing the 
wrongness. Neither is there any necessity that the num- 
ber of the elect should be small, and that of the non-elect 
great ; or the converse. The election and the non-election, 
and also the numbers of the elect and the non-elect, are 
all alike a matter of sovereignty and optional decision. 
At the same time it relieves the solemnity and awfulness 
which overhang the decree of reprobation, to remember 
that the Scriptures teach that the number of the elect is 
much greater than that of the non-elect. The kingdom 
of the Redeemer in this fallen world is always described 
as far greater and grander than that of Satan. The 
operation of grace on earth is uniformly represented as 
mightier than that of sin. " Where sin abounded, grace 
did much more abound.'" And the final number of the 
redeemed is said to be " a multitude which no man can 



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85 



number," but that of the lost is not so magnified and em- 
phasized. 

4. Fourthly, the reason why God should do everything 
for his own glory in the manifestation of all of his attri- 
butes, and why all of his rational creatures should do 
everything for the same purpose, so far as is possible to 
them, is because he is the first cause and the last end of 
all things. " Of him, and through him, and to him, are 
all things," says St. Paul. Every created being and thing 
must have a final end ; a terminus. The mineral king- 
dom is made for the vegetable kingdom ; the vegetable 
kingdom is made for the animal kingdom ; the animal 
kingdom is made for man ; and all of them together are 
made for God. Go through all the ranges of creation, 
from the molecule of matter to the seraphim, and if you 
ask for the final purpose of its creation, the reply is the 
glory of the Maker. And this is reasonable. For God is 
the greatest and most important, if we may use the word 
in such a connection, of all beings. That which justifies 
man in putting the dumb animals to his own uses, is the 
fact that he is a grander creature than they are. That 
which makes the inanimate world subservient to the ani- 
mate ; that which subsidizes the elements of earth, air, 
and water, and makes them tributary to the nourishment 
and growth of the beast and the bird, is the fact that the 
beast and the bird are of a higher order of existence than 
earth, air, and water. It was because man was the 
noblest, the most important, of all the creatures that God 
placed upon this planet, that he subordinated them all to 
him, and said to him in the original patent by which he 
deeded the globe to him: "Behold, I have given you 
every herb bearing seed ; have dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every liv- 
ing thing that moveth upon the earth." 



86 



CALVINISM : 



Now this principle holds good of the relation between 
the whole creation and its Creator. He is a higher and 
greater being than the whole created universe. The mass 
of his being, so to speak, outweighs all other masses. He 
never has created, he never can create, anything equal to 
himself in infinity and glory. And therefore it is that he 
is the final end, the cause of causes, the absolute ter- 
minus where all the sweep and movement of creation 
must come to a rest. It is an objection of the sceptic, 
and sometimes of those who are not sceptics, that this 
perpetual assertion in the Scriptures that God is the chief 
end of creation, and this perpetual demand that the creat- 
ure glorify him, is only a species of infinite egotism ; that 
in making the whole unlimited universe subservient to 
him and his purposes, the Deity is only exhibiting selfish- 
ness upon an immense scale. But this objection overlooks 
the fact that God is an infinitely greater and higher being 
than any or all of his creatures ; and that from the very 
nature of the case the less must be subordinated to the 
greater. Is it egotism, when man employs in his service 
his ox or his ass ? Is it selfishness, when the rose or the 
lily takes up into its own fabric and tissue the inanimate 
qualities of matter, and converts the dull and colorless 
elements of the clod into hues and odors, into beauty and 
bloom? There would be egotism in the procedure, if man 
were of no higher grade of existence than the ox or the 
ass. There would be selfishness, if the rose and the lily 
were upon the same level with the inanimate elements of 
matter. But the greater dignity in each instance justifies 
the use and the subordination. And so it is, only in an 
infinitely greater degree, in the case when the whole crea- 
tion is subordinated and made to serve and glorify the 
Creator. The distance between man and his ox, between 
the lily and the particle of moisture which it imbibes, is 



PUltE AND MIXED 



87 



measurable. It is not infinite. But the distance between 
God and the highest of his archangels is beyond computa- 
tion. He chargeth his angels with folly. And therefore 
upon the principle that the less must serve the greater, 
the lower must be subordinate to the higher, it is right 
and rational that " every creature which is in heaven, and 
on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the 
sea, and all that are in them, should say : 6 Blessing and 
honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth 
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.' " 



88 



CALVINISM : 



vm 

THE DOUBLE PREDESTINATION TO HOLINESS AND SIS 

The question whether there is a double predestination 
to both holiness and life and sin and death, or only a sin- 
gle predestination to holiness and life, was raised in the 
fifth and sixth centuries, during the Semi-Pelagian con- 
troversy, and afterward in the ninth century, in the con- 
troversy between Gottschalk and Ratramnus on the one 
side, and Rabanus Maurus and Hincmar on the other. 
The stricter Augustinians affirmed the predestinatio du- 
plex to both holiness and sin ; the milder affirmed only 
the single predestination to holiness. Both alike, how- 
ever, opposed the synergistic Semi-Pelagianism. The 
Calvinistic reformers and the Calvinistic creeds asserted 
the twofold predestination. The Westminster Confession 
declares it plainly. It is explicitly taught in Scripture. 
In Rom. 8 : 29, it is said that " whom God did fore- 
know, he also did predestinate {irpowpLae) to be conformed 
to the image of his Son." This is predestination to holi- 
ness. In Acts 4: 27, 28, it is said that " against thy holy 
child Jesus, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles 
and all the people of Israel were gathered, for to do what- 
soever thy hand and thy counsel determined before 
(TTpocopLo-e) to be done." This is predestination to sin. 
Compare also Acts 2: 23; Luke 22: 22; Jnde 4. Pre- 
cisely the same Greek word is employed in both texts, and 
should therefore be translated by precisely the same Eng- 
lish word in both. James's translators render it by " pre- 



PURE A 1ST) MIXED 



89 



destinate " in Rom. 8 : 29, and by " determined before " 
(predetermined) in Acts 4 : 28. There is no material dif- 
ference between u predestinate " and " predetermine," but 
it would have been better to have employed either one 
word or the other in both instances, because a merely 
English reader might be led to suppose that two different 
Greek words are employed in the original. The Revisers 
consistently render irpowpuae in both texts by the synony- 
mous term " foreordain." Hetherington (Westminster 
Assembly, Chap, x.) contends that " predestinate " and 
" foreordain " are not synonymous and interchangeable, 
because in Con. iii. 3, the first is used with everlasting 
life, and the last with everlasting death. His statement 
is as follows: "By predestination, the Westminster di- 
vines meant a particular decree determining to confer ever- 
lasting life. By foreordination, they meant a decree of 
order or arrangement determining that the guilty should 
be condemned to everlasting death ; and this they regard- 
ed as the basis of judicial procedure according to which 
' God ordains men to dishonor and wrath for their sin.' 
Let it furthermore be remarked that while according to 
this view the term predestination could never be applied 
to the lost, the term foreordination might be applied to 
the saved, since they also are subjects in one sense of ju- 
dicial procedure." There are the following objections to 
this denial that predestination and foreordination are 
equivalent terms, and to this definition of foreordination : 
1. One and the same word, irpocopio-e, is employed in 
Scripture to denote the divine action in reference to both 
holiness and sin, life and death, and therefore if two dif- 
ferent words are employed to translate it, they ought to be 
synonymous and applicable to both cases alike. 2. Lexi- 
cographers regard them as synonymous. Stormonth, e.g., 
defines "foreordain" by "predestinate," and " predesti- 



90 



CALVINISM : 



nate " by " foreordain." 3. If 7rpooopi<Te, in the instance 
of sin and death, means only a judicial decision to punisli 
sin, then, in the instance of holiness and life, it would 
mean only a judicial decision to reward holiness. If it is 
predestination to penalty in one case, it must be predesti- 
nation to reward in the other. But when St. Paul declares 
that " whom God did foreknow he did predestinate to be 
conformed to the image of his Son," he means that he pre- 
destinated them to the conformity itself, and not merely 
to the reward of it. 4. To say, as Hetherington does, that 
" to foreordain some men to everlasting death " is " a de- 
cree determining that the guilty shall be condemned to 
everlasting death " (i.e., to the penalty of sin), is to mis- 
conceive the nature of a decree. The matter of a decree 
is always optional. It supposes the possibility of the con- 
trary. When God decrees the creation of the world, he 
is at liberty not to decree it and not to create it. But 
when he condemns the guilty to punishment, this is not an 
optional matter, but follows necessarily from the nature of 
the divine justice and the threatening of the divine law. 
There is, therefore, no more place for a decree " to con- 
demn the guilty to everlasting death " than for a decree 
that virtue shall be rewardable, or that two and two shall 
make four. The same remark applies to Iletherington's 
definition of "predestination" as "a particular decree de- 
termining to confer everlasting life." Everlasting life, 
strictly speaking, is the reward of obedience, which fol- 
lows necessarily from God's promise, " This do and thou 
shalt live," and from the nature of remunerative justice. 
There is nothing optional in it. We cannot conceive of 
God's decreeing not to reward obedience, and still less to 
punish it. Unless, therefore, " conferring everlasting 
life" includes the origination in the elect of the holiness 
which is rewardable with everlasting life, as was probably 



PURE AND MIXED 



91 



the view of Hetherington, it is not the predestination 
which St. Paul describes as a predestination " to be con- 
formed to the image " of the Son of God. 

In the Pauline conception, predestination, or foreordi- 
nation, covers and includes both the holiness that is to be 
rewarded with life, and the sin that is to be punished with 
death. The holiness of the elect is predestinated, and the 
sin of the non-elect likewise. Both alike are represented 
by the apostle as standing in a certain relation to the divine 
purpose and the divine action, and this purpose and action 
are designated by the one word irpowpLae. To omit both 
the holiness and the sin from the predestination, and re- 
tain only the recompense of each, is to mutilate the Bibli- 
cal representation, and convert the divine predestination 
of Con. iii. 3, into the divine adjudication or sentencing of 
Con. iii. 7. And to omit the sin but retain the holiness, 
as is done by those who adopt the single predestination 
and reject the double, though much less defective, is yet 
defective in omitting that element of revealed truth con- 
tained in texts like Acts 4 : 27, 28 ; 2 : 23 ; Luke 22 : 22 ; 
Jude 4 ; Pom. 9 : 21, et alia, whereby sin as well as holi- 
ness is taken out of the sphere of chance and brought 
within the divine plan. 

If, then, the Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul to employ 
the word irpoaipicre to denote the nature of God's action 
both when he predestinates the elect to holiness and the 
non-elect to a sin like that of crucifying the Lord of 
glory, it becomes a most important question : What is the 
nature of this predestinating action of God ? What does 
it include and what does it exclude ? The answer is, that 
God's predestinating in election and pretention is his 
making the origin of holiness in an elect sinner, and the 
continuance (not origin) of sin in a non-elect sinner, a 
c riainty in his plan of the universe, in distinction from a 



92 



CALVINISM : 



contingency outside of that plan springing from chance ; 
and that it includes certainty only, and excludes necessity 
and compulsion. Opponents of the doctrine of decrees, 
from the beginning, generally assume that to decree holi- 
ness or sin is to necessitate them. The defenders of the 
doctrine uniformly deny this. They contend that when 
the divine decree relates to the action of the human will, 
be it holy or sinful action, there is certainty, but not com- 
pulsion. The Westminster Confession, iii. 1, declares that 
" God [fore] ordains whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so as 
thereby neither is God the author of sin ; nor is violence 
offered to the will of the creature ; nor is the liberty of 
second causes taken away, but rather established." 

How can these things be ? How, in the first place, 
does God make the origin and everlasting continuance of 
holiness in an elect sinner a certainty without compelling 
and necessitating his will ? By the regenerating and 
sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit ; by u working in" 
the will, to will and to do of his good pleasure." Phil. 2: 
13. Scripture teaches that this operation of the Spirit 
does not destroy the freedom of the will. " If the Son 
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John 8 : 
36. And the report of consciousness agrees with this; 
for the regenerate man has no sense of being forced and 
unwilling in anj T of his experiences and exercises. 

How, in the second place, does God make the everlast- 
ing continuance of sin in a non-elect sinner a certainty 
without compelling and necessitating his will ? By let- 
ting him alone, or, in the Confessional phrase, by " pass- 
ing him by," and leaving him wholly to his own self-de- 
termination in sin ? The sublapsarian pretention, which 
is that of the Westminster Confession and all the Re- 
formed creeds, supposes the fall in Adam and the existence 
of sin to be prior, in the order of nature, to both election 



PURE AND MIXED 



93 



and pretention. Election and pretention, consequently, 
have reference to the continuance of sin, not to the origin 
of it. All men fall in Adam, without exception ; so that 
there is no election or non-election to the fall itself, but 
only to deliverance from it. Both election and pretention 
suppose the fall, and are inexplicable without it as a pre- 
supposition. Men are elected from out of a state of sin ; 
and men are passed by and left in a state of sin. " They 
who are elected [and they who are passed by] being fallen 
in Adam," etc., Con. iii. 6. Election stops the continu- 
ance of sin ; pretention permits the continuance of it. 
The non-elect man, then, like the elect, being already in 
the state of sin and guilt by the free fall in Adam, noth- 
ing is requisite in order to make it certain that he will 
forever remain in this state but the purpose of God not to 
restrain and change the action of his free will and self- 
will in sin by regenerating it. To denominate such 
merely permissive action as this, compulsion, is absurd. 
And yet this permissive action of God secures the certainty 
of everlasting sin and death in the case of the non-elect, 
just as infallibly as the efficient action of God secures the 
certainty of everlasting holiness and life in the case of the 
elect. But in tiie former instance the certainty is secured 
wholly by the action of the sinner himself, while in the 
latter instance it is secured by the action of the Holy Spirit 
within the sinner. This leaving of the sinful will to its 
own movement makes endless sin an infallible certainty. 
For the sinner himself will and can never regenerate him- 
self ; and if God has in his sovereignty decided and pur- 
posed not to regenerate him, his willing and endless contin- 
uance in sin and death is certain. Every Christian knows 
that if, in his unregeneracy, he had been left wholly to his 
own free will, without any restraint from God, he would 
infallibly have gone from bad to worse forever and ever. 



94 



CALVINISM : 



In these two ways of efficiency and permission, God 
" foreordains " and makes certain two things that unques- 
tionably " come to pass," namely, the everlasting holiness 
and life of some men, and the everlasting sin and death of 
some men ; " yet so as thereby God is not the author of sin ; 
nor is violence done to the will of the creature ; nor is the 
liberty of second causes taken away, but rather established." 
When God predetermined from eternity not to restrain and 
prevent "Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and 
all the people of Israel," from crucifying his beloved Son, but 
to leave them to their own wicked inclination and volun- 
tary action in the case, he made this crucifixion a certainty, 
but not a necessity, as is evinced by the " woe " pronounced 
upon them by the Son of God. Luke 22 : 22. Men with 
hearts and dispositions full of hatred toward the Saviour 
of the world, if left to themselves are infallibly certain to 
cry, " Crucify him ; crucify him." John 19 : 12-15. 

The Confession (vi. 1 ; L. C. 19) declares that God 
"permits" sin, but that it is not a "bare permission." 
Con. v. 4. The permission that is adopted by the As- 
sembly is one that occurs by a voluntary decision of God 
which he need not have made, had he so pleased. He 
might have decided not to permit sin ; in which case it 
would not have entered his universe. The " bare per- 
mission" wmich is rejected by the Assembly means that 
God makes no voluntary decision at all in the case ; that 
he could not have prevented the fall of angels and men, 
but stands " like an idle spectator," having no control over 
the event which he witnesses. Augustine makes the fol- 
lowing statement in his Enchiridion, Ch. 100 : " In a way 
unspeakably strange and wonderful, even what is done in 
opposition to God's will [of desire] does not defeat his 
will [of decree]. For it would not be done did he not 
permit it, and of course his permission is not unwilling, 



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but willing; nor would a Good Being permit evil to be 
done except that in his omnipotence he can turn evil into 
good." Calvin, adopting Augustine's phraseology, con- 
cisely marks the difference between the two permissions 
in the remark, that " God's permission of sin is not invol- 
untary, but voluntary." Inst. I. xviii. 3. Both Augus- 
tine and Calvin had particular reference, in this connec- 
tion, to the first origin of sin in angels and men. 1 But 
their statement holds true of the continuance of sin in 
augels and men. When God passes by all the fallen and 
sinful angels, and does not regenerate and save any of 
them, it is by a positive voluntary decision that might 
have been different had he so pleased. He could have 
saved them. And when God passes by some fallen and 
sinful men and does not regenerate and save them, this 
also is a positive voluntary decision that might have been 
different had he so pleased. He could have saved them. 
To deny this option of God in either instance is to den} T , 
1st, the divine sovereignty in the exercise of mercy ; and, 
2d, the divine omnipotence in the control of creatures. 

1 The permissive decree as related to the origin of sin presents a dif- 
ficulty that does not exist in reference to the continuance of sin. The 
certainty of the continuance of sin in fallen man is easily explained, "by 
merely leaving the fallen will to its self determination. But merely 
leaving the unfallen will to its self-determination would not make its 
apostasy certain ; because it was endowed by creation with a power to 
remain holy as created, and there was no punitive withdrawal of any 
grace given in creation until after apostasy. How, under these circum- 
stances, a permissive decree which does not operate by direct efficiency 
can make the fall of a holy being certain, is an inscrutable mystery. 
Respecting it, Turretin (VI. vii. 1) makes the following remark: "Two 
extremes are to be avoided. First, that of defect, when an otiose per- 
mission of sin is ascribed to God. Second, that of excess, when the 
causality of sin is ascribed to him. Between these extremes, the or- 
thodox hold the mean, who contend that the providence of God extends 
to sin in such way that he does not involuntarily permit it, as the Pela- 
gians say, nor actively cause it, as the Libertines assert, but voluntarily 
ordains and controls it." 



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CALVINISM : 



IX. 

COMMON AND SPECIAL GRACE 

The distinction between common and special grace is 
closely connected with the Calvinistic doctrine of election 
and pretention. If it is denied or explained away, it is 
impossible to hold the Calvinistic view on these latter 
points. This will appear by considering the distinction as 
taught in Scripture, and formulated in the Westminster 
Standards. 

Common grace is a lower degree of grace than special. 
The latter succeeds in overcoming the enmity of the car- 
nal mind and the opposition of the sinful will; the former 
does not succeed. Says John Howe, "When divine grace 
is working but at the common rate ; then it suffers itself 
oftentimes to be overcome, and yields the victory to the 
contending sinner." This was the case with the people of 
Israel as described by Stephen, " Ye stiff-necked and mi? 
circumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the 
Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye." Acts 7 : 51. 
The same complaint was made against resisting Israel by 
Isaiah, " They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit ; there- 
fore he was turned to be their enemy." Isa. 63 : 10. The 
same failure of common grace to subdue the sinner is 
noted in Gen. 6 : 10, "My Spirit shall not always strive 
with man." Whenever man quenches conviction of sin 
and plunges into temptation in order to get rid of serious 
and anxious thoughts, and the IIoh r Spirit leaves him to 
his own self-will, this is common grace. The process is 



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described in the solemn words of God himself, " Because 
I have called and ye have refused ; I have stretched out 
my hand and no man regarded, but ye have set at nought 
all my counsel and would none of my reproof, I also will 
laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear Com- 
eth." Prov. 1 : 24-26. In common grace, the sinner is too 
obstinate and self-determined in sin for it to succeed. 

In special grace, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit does 
not leave the sinner to his own self-determination, but 
continues to operate upon his resisting will until he sub- 
dues it. He " makes him willing in the day of his power." 
Ps. 110 : 3. He " works in hiin to will and to do of his 
good pleasure." Phil. 2 : 13. He " makes him perfect in 
every good work to do his will, working in him that which 
is well pleasing in his sight." Ileb. 13 : 21. This grade 
of divine grace is higher than common grace. It is de- 
nominated " irresistible," not in the sense that no resist- 
ance is made by the sinner, but in the sense that it con- 
quers all his resistance. It is also denominated " effectual," 
because it secures salvation. It is also called " regenerat- 
ing," because it changes the disposition of the sinful heart 
and will by " the washing of regeneration and renewing 
of the Holy Ghost." Tit. 3:5. 

These two forms and grades of grace, so plainly de- 
scribed in the Scripture texts above cited, are mentioned 
in the Westminister Confession, vii. 3, "Man by his fall, 
having made himself incapable of life by that [legal] 
covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, com- 
monly called the covenant of grace, wherein he freely 
offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, 
requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, 
and promising to give unto all those that are ordained to 
life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to be- 
lieve." According to this statement there are two things 
7 



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CALVINISM : 



contained in the covenant of grace : (a) An offer to sinners 
of life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them 
faith in him, that they may be saved ; and (b) a promise 
to give unto all those that are ordained to life the Holy 
Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. The 
" offer " in the covenant of grace is made to all sinners 
without exception, but the "promise" in the covenant is 
made only to "those that are ordained to life," or the 
elect. The " offer" is common grace ; the " promise " is 
special grace. The " offer " is taught in such Scriptures 
as, " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to 
every creature. lie that believeth shall be saved." Mark 
16 : 15. " God so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." John 3 : 16. The 
" promise " is taught in such Scriptures as, " A new heart 
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, 
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and 
I will give you an heart of flesh." Ezek. 36 : 26, 27. 
" All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and 
him that cometh to me [because given by the Father] I 
will in no wise cast out. No man can come to me, except 
the Father which hath sent me, draw him." John 6: 
37, 41-. 

Tiie following then, are some of the marks of distinction 
between common and special grace : (a) In common grace 
God demands faith in Christ, but does not give it ; in 
special grace God both demands and gives faith, for " faith 
is the gift of God." Eph. 2 : 8. When God says to a sin- 
ner : " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
be saved," he makes no promise or pledge to originate 
faith in him. The sinner, in this case, must originate his 
own faith, and any sinner that originates it will find that 
God will be true to his word. (I) In common grace man 



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must of himself fulfil the condition of salvation, namely, 
believe and repent ; in special grace God persuades and 
enables him to fulfil it. (e) In common grace the call to 
believe and repent is invariably ineffectual, because man is 
averse to faith and repentance and in bondage to sin ; in 
special grace the call is invariably effectual, because his 
aversion and bondage are changed into willingness and 
true freedom by the operation of the Holy Spirit, (d) 
Common grace is universal and indiscriminate, having no 
relation to election and pretention. No man is elected to 
it, and no man is " passed by " in its bestowment. All 
men who come to years of self-consciousness are more or 
less convicted of sin (Rom. 1 : 32 ; 2 : 14, 15), are more or 
less commanded to repent (Acts 17: 30), are more or less 
urged to repentance (Rom. 2 : 4), and are more or less 
striven with by the Holy Spirit (Gen. 6:10; Acts 17 : 26, 
27) — all of which belong to the common operations of 
divine grace. Special grace, on the contrary, is particular 
and discriminating, and is connected with election and pre- 
tention. God does not originate faith and repentance in 
all men, nor does he promise to do so. He does not per- 
suade and enable every man without exception to believe 
and repent. Only those whom he chooses before the 
foundation of the world are the subjects of that higher 
degree of the energy of the Holy Ghost by which these 
wonderful effects are wrought in the sinner. Respecting 
special grace, God " saith to Moses, I will have mercy on 
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on 
whom I will have compassion." And St. Paul from this 
draws the inference, " Therefore he hath mercy on whom 
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth " 
[leaves in sin]. Kom. 9 : 15, 18. In accordance with 
these and similar Scriptures, the Confession (vii. 3) declares 
that it is only to u those that are ordained to life " that 



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CALVINISM : 



God " promises to give liis Holy Spirit to make them 
willing and able to believe."' 

What now is the difference between the Calvinistic and 
the Arminian view of common grace ? This is a question 
of great importance just now, because the Northern Pres- 
byterian Church has decided by a large majority that it 
will make no alteration of its Standards that will impair 
their Calvinism. Calvinism asserts that common grace 
cannot be made successful by the co-operation of the un- 
regenerate sinner with the Holy Spirit, and thereby be 
converted into special or saving grace : Arminianism as- 
serts that it can be. The Arminian contends that the or- 
dinary operations of the Divine Spirit which are experi- 
enced by all men indiscriminately will succeed, if the un- 
renewed man will cease to resist them and will yield to 
them. Ceasing to resist and yielding, he contends, is an 
agency which the natural man can and must exert of him- 
self, and this agency co-working with that of the Holy 
Spirit secures the result — namely, faith and repentance. 
Faith and repentance are thus the product of a joint 
agency : that of God and that of the unreo-enerate sin- 
ner. Xeither party originates faith and repentance alone. 
Neither party is independent of the other in this transac- 
tion. If the sinner does not cease resisting and submit, 
God will fail, and if God does not assist him by common 
grace, the sinner will fail. Each conditions the other; 
and consequently the Arminian, from his point of view, is 
consistent in asserting that the Divine election to faith 
and repentance is not sovereign and independent of the 
sinner's action but is conditioned by it. 

The Calvinist, on the contrary, holds that the unregen- 
erate man never ceases to resist and never yields to God 
of his own motion, but only as lie is acted upon by the 
Holy Spirit and is thereby " persuaded and enabled " to 



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101 



cease resisting and to yield obedience. Ceasing to resist 
God, he contends, is holy action, and so is yielding or sub- 
mitting to God. To refer this kind of action to the sin- 
ful and unregenerate will as its author, the Calvinist as- 
serts is contrary to the Scripture declaration, that " the 
carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to 
the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. A 
will at enmity with God never of itself ceases resisting 
him, and never of itself yields to him. It must be changed 
from enmity into love by " the washing of regeneration 
and renewing of the Holy Ghost " in order to sweet and 
gentle submission. The sinner, as such, cannot, therefore, 
assist and co-operate with the Holy Spirit in this work of 
originating faith and repentance, but the whole of it must 
be done by that Almighty Agent who can turn the human 
heart as the rivers of water. Christ, through the Spirit, 
is the sole " author of faith" (Heb. 12: 2). When the 
Holy Spirit puts forth a higher degree of his energy than 
he exerts in his ordinary operation, he overcomes and 
stops the sinner's resistance instead of the sinner's over- 
coming and stopping it of himself, and inclines the sinner 
to yield to the Divine monitions and impulse instead of 
the sinner's yielding of his own accord. If the sinner's 
resistance is u overcome," it is overcome by God's action ; 
but if it "ceases," it ceases by the sinner's action. To say 
that common grace would succeed if it were not resisted 
i by man, is not the same as saying that common grace 
would succeed if it were yielded to by the man. Non-re- 
sistance is different from ceasing resistance. In the former 
instance there is no opposition by the man ; in the latter 
there is opposition, which is put a stop to by the man. 

The doctrine of a co-operating and conditioning action 
of the unrenewed sinner, by which common grace may be- 
come special or saving grace, so that all mankind stand in 



102 



CALVINISM : 



the same relation to election, and there is no pretention 
by God, because the difference between the elect and the 
non-elect is not made by the Divine decree, but by man's 
action in yielding or not yielding to common grace, is 
clearly expressed in the following extract from the 
Confession of the Arminian .Remonstrants: "Although 
there is the greatest diversity in the degrees in which 
grace is bestowed in accordance with the Divine will, yet 
the Holy Spirit confers, or at least is ready to confer, 
upon all and each to whom the Word is ordinarily 
preached, as much grace as is sufficient for generating 
faith and carrying forward their conversion in its succes- 
sive stages. This sufficient grace for faith and conversion 
is allotted not only to those who actually believe and are 
converted, but also to those who do not actually believe, 
and are not in fact converted. So that there is no decree 
of absolute reprobation " (Confession, ch. xvii.). This 
view of grace is synergistic. Every man that hears the 
gospel receives a degree of grace that is sufficient for 
generating faith and repentance, provided he yields to it. 
If, therefore, he does not believe and repent, it must be 
because of the absence of some human efficiency to co- 
operate with the Divine ; and therefore the difference be- 
tween the saved and the lost, the elect and the non-elect, 
is partly referable to the human will, and not wholly to 
the Divine decree. So far as the Divine influence is con- 
cerned, the saved and the lost stand upon the same com- 
mon position and receive the same common form and de- 
gree of grace, which is sufficient to save provided it be 
rightly used and assisted by the sinner. The saved man 
makes the common grace effectual by an act of his own 
will, namely, yielding and ceasing resistance ; while the 
lost man nullifies it by an act of his own will, namely, 
persisting in enmity and opposition. According to the 



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monergistic or Calvinistic view of grace, on the contrary, 
no man receives a grace that is " sufficient for generating 
faith " who does not receive such a measure of Divine 
influence as overcomes his hostile will ; so that he does not 
stop his own resistance but is stopped by the mercy and 
power of God ; so that his faith and repentance are not 
the result in part of his own efficiency, but solely of the 
Holy Spirit's irresistible and sovereign energy in regen- 
eration. In a word, the dependence upon Divine grace in 
the Calvinistic system is total ; in the Arminian is partial. 
In the former, common grace cannot be made saving 
grace by the sinner's co-action ; in the latter it can be. 

It is an open question between the two great evangeli- 
cal divisions of the Christian Church which of these two 
views of grace is most correct and most conformed to 
Scripture. But it is not an open question whether one 
view is the same thing as the other. Yet the discussion 
respecting the revision of the Westminster Standards 
shows that some who claim to be Calvinists adopt the 
doctrine of co-operation, and make election and salvation 
depend partly upon human action. Consider the follow- 
ing statement of an advocate of revision: "There is a 
human and a divine side to regeneration. God determines 
how many and who will be saved, and every man de- 
termines for himself whether he will be among that num- 
ber." Here are two " determiners " who co-operate in 
regeneration, God and the sinner. And if the sinner 
" determines for himself whether he will be among the 
number of the saved," then certainly it is not God who 
" determines how many and who will be saved." It is the 
sinner who determines this. This is not Calvinism. 

Common grace is connected with God's legislative will, 
or will of desire ; special grace with his decretive will, or 
will of purpose. (See p. 52, note.) These two modes of 



104 



CALVINISM : 



the Divine will are presented by St. Paul and St. Peter 
in two passages that are often misapprehended. The texts, 
" God our Saviour will have all men to be saved, and to 
come to the knowledge of the truth " {1 Tim. 2 : 3, 1), and 
u The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that 
any should perish, but that all should come to repent- 
ance" (2 Pet. 3 : 9), are often quoted as if they were 
identical in their teaching, and as if both refer to com- 
mon grace. An examination will show that the first text 
is universal in its meaning, and refers to the seneral 
offer of the gospel ; but the last is particular, and re- 
lates to the effectual call and actual salvation of the elect 
alone. 

In 1 Tim. 2 : 1, the Greek is 09 irdvra^ av^pdyjrov^ 
Sk\ei acoSPjvai (who desires all men to be saved). In 2 Pet. 
3 : 0, it is firj j3oi>\6fj.€v6>; rwas cnrdXeaSai, dWa ttcivtcls 
ek fierdroiav x (D PW aL ( no * purposing that some should 
perish, but that all should go on to [perfect] repentance). 
The employment of &i\co in the first passage, and of 
f3ov\ofiai in the second, indicates the first point of differ- 
ence. The former denotes the will of desire, the latter 
the will of purpose. An examination of the texts hi 
Eruders Concordance will plainly show that in the Xew 
Testament this is generally the use of these two words. 
The Septuagint use is not so strict as that of the ^ew 
Testament, and the classical is still more loose. The dis- 
tinction generally given by lexicographers is, that $ov- 
Xofiai involves deliberation and intention along with de- 
sire p* deliberato consilio aliquid volo, cupio, decerno"), 
while #e\a> denotes simple desire only (" simpliciter 
volo"\ In 1 Tim. 2 : 1. St. Paul declares that God 
" desires all men to be saved," but not that he purposes 
that they all shall be. In 2 Pet. 3 : 9, St. Peter declares 
that God *' does not purpose that some [of us] should 



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perish, but that all [of us] should go on to repentance " 
(complete sanctification). 

And this brings us to the second point of difference. 
The action of £e\a in 1 Tim. 2 : 4 terminates on iravras 
av&punrovs ; that of /SouXo^e^o? in 2 Pet. 3 : 9 termi- 
nates on rivas (avQpco7rov<;). All men are the object of the 
Divine desire ; some are the object of the Divine decree. 
Who these latter are is shown by the immediately pre- 
ceding context, " The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward 
(efc ^yu-a?), not purposing that any [of us : tj/jlcov'] should 
perish." St. Paul is writing to the children of God, and 
it is concerning such that he affirms that none of them 
shall perish, because this is the decretive will of God. 

It is to be regretted that the terms desire or inclination, 
and purpose, intention, or decree, have not been more care- 
fully employed in both the Authorized and Pe vised ver- 
sions to mark the difference between SeXy/ia and {3ov\t)/mz. 
In Pom. 9 : 22, the meaning of St. Paul would be more 
clearly expressed if the translation were, " What if God, 
[though] inclined (QeXcov) to shew his wrath and make his 
power known, [yet] endured with much long-suffering the 
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." The apostle asks 
the objector what he would say in reply if the fact were 
(as it actually is), that God shows infinite patience and 
forbearance toward the obstinate and impenitent sinner 
in putting a restraint upon his holy displeasure against 
sin, which inclines him to the immediate punishment of 
it. In Pom. 9:19, the meaning would be free from all 
ambiguity if the rendering were, " Who hath resisted his 
decree (J3ov\ri/jLaTi) ? " Every human being lias resisted 
God's " will " in the sense of desire, as used in Matt. 5 : 
10, " Thy will (MXrjfia) be done." In Heb. 6 : 17, the 
writer's thought would be more exactly presented if the 
rendering were, " Wherein God, intending (fiovXofAevos) 



106 



CALVINISM : 



more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the 
immutability of his counsel," etc. The rendering in the 
Authorized version, " willing to show," might mean will- 
ing in distinction from unwilling, or willing in the sense 
of desiring, neither of which expresses the definite pur- 
pose of God in the case. The Revised version renders, 
" being minded to show." But "minded " denotes desire 
and inclination rather than purpose or intention ; as in 
Rom. 8:6," To be carnally minded is death, but to be 
spiritually minded is life and peace." In Matt. 1 : 19, 
both &e\co and fiovXoficu are found, and would be pre- 
cisely translated in this manner : " Then Joseph her hus- 
band being a just [law-respecting] man, and [yet] not 
wishing (S-ekeov) to make her a public example, intended 
(i/3ov\rj$r)) to put her away privily." 



PUKE AND MIXED 



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X. 

THE TRUE PROPORTION IN A CREED BETWEEN THE UNI- 
VERSAL AND THE SPECIAL LOVE OF GOD 

It is objected that insufficient emphasis is laid in the 
Westminster Confession upon the universal offer of mercy, 
and the common call to faith and repentance, and some 
even contend that these are not contained in it. Advo- 
cates of revision demand that these doctrines shall be 
more particularly enunciated than they now are, and com- 
plain that more is said concerning the electing love of 
God in the effectual call than upon his indiscriminate 
love in the outward call. In reply to this, we mention 
the three following reasons why the Westminster Confes- 
sion, in common with all the Reformed creeds, is more 
full and emphatic regarding the special love of God 
toward his church than regarding his general love toward 
the world. 

1. The Scriptures themselves are more full and em- 
phatic in the first reference than in the last. A careful 
examination of the Old and New Testaments will show 
that while the universal compassion of God toward sinful 
men is plainly and frequently taught, yet it is the relation 
of God as the Saviour of his people that constitutes the 
larger proportion of the teachings of the Prophets, the 
Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles. These parts of 
Scripture are full of God's dealings with his covenant 
people, instructing them, expostulating with them, rebuk- 
ing them, comforting them, helping them — expressing in 



108 



CALVINISM : 



these and other ways his special love and affection for 
them, as those whom he has chosen before the foundation 
of the world. Throughout the Bible men universally are 
both invited and commanded to believe and repent. No 
one disputes this. This is God's universal love. But, 
whenever the love of God is particularly enlarged upon, 
carefully delineated, and repeatedly emphasized, in the 
great majority of instances it is his electing love. The 
Saviour's last discourses with his disciples, and his last 
prayer, have for their principal theme the " love of his own 
which were in the world," whom 46 lie loved unto the end." 
For these he specially supplicates. "I pray for them: 
I pray not [now] for the world, but for them which thou 
hast given me, for they are thine." The Epistles of Paul 
also are like the Redeemer's discourses. So full are they 
of expanded and glowing descriptions of the electing love 
of God that the charge of a narrow Jewish conception of 
the Divine compassion is frequently made against them. 
The Confession therefore follows the Scriptures in regard 
to the proportion of doctrine, when it puts the mercy of 
God toward his people in the foreground. And to object 
to this proportion is to object to Divine Revelation. 

2. The electing love of God and his special grace natu- 
rally has the foremost place in the Confession as in Script- 
ure, because it is the only love and grace that is success- 
ful with the sinner. The universal love of God in his 
outward call and common grace is a failure, because it is 
inadequate to overcome the enmity and resistance with 
which man meets it. While therefore the sacred writers 
represent the common call as prompted b} 7 the compassion 
of God toward the sinner, and expressive of his sincere 
desire that he would hear it, and as aggravating his per- 
sistence in the sin of which a free pardon is offered, yet 
inasmuch as it yields no saving and blessed results, they 



PURE AND MIXED 



109 



see do reason for making it the principal and prominent 
part of the Divine oracles. But that electing love in the 
' effectual call and irresistible grace, which overcomes the 
aversion of the sinner and powerfully inclines his hostile 
will, inasmuch as it is the principal work of God in the 
human heart, becomes the principal subject of discourse 
for " the holy men of God who spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost." They dwell rather on the special 
grace that triumphs over human depravity, than on the 
common grace that is defeated by it. 

3. The universal offer of mercy is not emphasized and 
enlarged upon in the Confession, because this is sujjerjlu- 
ous. That the offer of mercy in Christ is universal goes 
without saying, because if offered at all it must be offered 
universally. It is impossible to offer the atonement of 
Christ only to the elect. ~No man knows who are the 
elect, and therefore the ambassador of Christ must offer 
salvation to everybody or else to nobod} T . Any offer at 
all must, from the nature of the case, be unlimited. Why, 
therefore, waste words in a creed to declare with unneces- 
sary fulness what must be as a matter of course, and what 
is clearly and sufficiently announced in such Scripture 
entreaties as " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die," and 
such Confessional declarations as we have cited on pp. 24- 
29? 

If it be objected that God knows who are the elect, and 
that it is inconsistent in him to make a universal offer of 
mercy through an ignorant agent like a Christian minis- 
ter, when he does not purpose to regenerate and save 
every individual man, this is a difficulty for him, not for 
man. It is certainly consistent for man to offer mercy in- 
discriminately because he does not know who are the elect, 
even if it is not for God because lie does know. But is 
it inconsistent for God ? What are the facts in relation 



110 



CALVINISM : 



to God ? He offers mercy to a man in the outward call, 
and accompanies this call with that degree of grace de- 
nominated " common." The man despises the call and 
frustrates the grace, by suppressing conviction of sin and 
persisting in the worldly life which he loves. JS r ow does 
the fact that God has decided not to do anything more 
than this toward the salvation of this resisting man prove 
that in doing this he has acted inconsistently with mercy ? 
Is not God's action up to this point kind, forbearing, 
patient, and merciful? All that lie has done to this man 
in the outward call and common grace has had no ten- 
dency to injure him by confirming him in sin, but, on the 
contrary, to benefit him by delivering him from it. There 
has been nothing hard or unmerciful in this form and 
grade of divine grace toward this guilty sinner who does 
not deserve the least degree of grace. It is true that it is 
not the highest form of grace, yet it is real grace, and far 
greater than any sinner merits. Is it inconsistent in God 
to do any kind and degree of good to a sinner, it* be lias 
decided not to do the highest kind and degree of good in 
his power ? Shall God do nothing at all that is kind and 
gracious to a sinful man, unless he has decided to over- 
come all the opposition that he may make to his kindness 
and grace? Must God make no offer of mercy to a sin- 
ner, unless he has decided to make him accept it ? Shall 
he extend the common call only in the case in which he 
intends to follow it with the effectual call? 

There never was an age of the world when men more 
needed than now to be reminded that they are resisting 
the common grace of God, and rejecting his universal offer 
of mercy, and that in so doing they run the great hazard 
of God's preterition / of being passed by in the bestow- 
ment of regenerating grace. Men need to fear, lest, by 
stifling conviction of sin and turning a deaf ear to the 



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common call, they shall never be the subjects of the effec- 
tual call in regeneration. For, saj T s the Larger Catechism, 
68, " others [than the elect] may be, and often are out- 
wardly called by the ministry of the word, and have some 
common operations of the Spirit, who, for their wilful 
neglect and contempt of the grace offered to them, being 
justly left in their unbelief, do never truly come to Jesus 
Christ." And this agrees with the solemn declaration of 
God himself : " Because I have called and ye refused ; I 
have stretched my hand, and no man regarded ; I also 
will laugh at your calamity " (Prov. 1 : 24-26). 



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CALVINISM 



XL 

INFANT SALVATION AS RELATED TO ORIGINAL SIN 

In order to a correct understanding of the Calvinistic 
doctrine of the salvation of infants, it is necessary to re- 
member the two theories of original sin which began in 
the Augustinian and Semi-Pelagian anthropologies, and 
are continued in the Calvinistic and Arminian. They dif- 
fer essentially from eacli other, and result in essentially 
different views of infant salvation. 

The Augustinian doctrine is that original sin is dam- 
ning, and that infants deserve eternal death on account of 
it. Being fallen in Adam, they have a corrupt disposition 
or inclination, which is both voluntary and responsible. 
It is the self in its central and inmost self-determination. 
Though the infant has committed no acts of known and 
wilful transgression., yet his heart is estranged from God, 
and his will is at enmity with the holy law of God. When 
he comes to years of consciousness he feels guilty for this 
estrangement and this enmity, and this proves that it is 
guilt. An infant, therefore, needs salvation because he is 
really culpable and punishable. He requires the whole 
work of the Redeemer, both as expiating guilt and cleans- 
ing from pollution. 

The Semi-Pelagian doctrine is, that original sin is not 
damning; that neither infants nor adults deserve eternal 
punishment on account of it. Only actual transgression 
merits hell. Upon this theory original sin is calamitous, 
not culpable, and therefore the dying infant is not in a 



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strictly damnable and lost condition. He lias a disordered 
nature which tempts and prompts to sin, but is not sin it- 
self. Consequently when he is said to be " saved," the 
term does not mean, as it does on the other theory, that 
he is delivered from the pains of hell as something that 
might justly be inflicted upon him. 

If the first of these views of original sin is adopted, the 
salvation of dying infants, whether of some or of all, is 
an act of unobliged and unmerited grace. It is salvation 
from deserved eternal death. By reason of original sin 
the infant is truly culpable before the law and justice of 
God. He might be punished eternally for it, and no in- 
justice would be done to him. His salvation, therefore, 
is as unmerited and optional as that of an adult. God 
has a just liberty to decide whether he will leave all in- 
fants in sin and misery, or whether he will regenerate and 
save all of them or a part of them. These things follow 
if the premise that original sin is guilt is correct. 

If the second of these views of original sin is adopted, 
the " salvation " of dying infants is not real but nominal 
and putative, because it is not grace but debt. If there 
be no culpability in original sin, there is none resting upon 
the infant ; for this is all the sin he has. If he does not 
deserve hell punishment, he does not need to be saved 
from it, and is not saved from it. His moral condition is 
one of misfortune, not of guilt. His so-called " salvation," 
therefore, cannot be regulated like that of an adult by the 
sovereign, unobliged, and optional decision of God. No 
infants can justly be sent to perdition for original sin. 
All must be " saved " from its consequences, whatever 
these may be. These are the necessary inferences from 
this view of original sin, and they are embodied in the 
declaration that " it would be unjust and wrong in God to 
send innocent and harmless infants to perdition." 
8 



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CALVINISM : 



Now, it is plain that whichever of these two views of 
original sin be correct, the doctrine of infant salvation 
cannot be the same upon one that it is upon the other. 
Neither can there be a blending or mixing of one with 
the other. It is sometimes said that the extension of elec- 
tion by the later Calvinism, so as to include all infants as 
a class instead of a part of them as individuals, is a de- 
parture from the Calvinistic system, and a considerable 
modification of it in the direction of Arminianism. But 
there is nothing of this, provided the Calvinistic view of 
original sin is retained strictly and fully. So long as the 
later Calvinist holds with the elder, that "every sin, both 
original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous 
law of God, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the 
sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, 
and made subject to death, temporal and eternal " (Con- 
fess, vi. 6), he stands upon the very same theological 
ground with him. He adopts the same definitions of sin, 
of guilt, of salvation, of grace, of regeneration, and of 
election. The only point of difference is the minor one 
relating to the diameter of the circle of election. The 
only question between the parties is, How many guilty 
and lost dying infants does the infinite and unmerited 
mercy of God regenerate and save from eternal death ? 
Though the elder Calvinist did not, like the later, say 
that infant salvation is classical, not individual, he yet 
prepared the way for it, by distinguishing between infants 
that are saved by " covenanted " mercy and those that are 
saved by " uncovenanted." Even Augustine indirectly 
worked toward this widening of the circle of infant elec- 
tion in his assertion that the sufferings of lost infants are 
" mitissima omnium." He held with great positiveness that 
original sin in an infant is the inclination of the will de- 
scending and inherited from Adam, and as such is free 



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agency and wrong agency, and as such is punishable with 
the just penalty of sin. It would therefore have been 
more self-consistent and logical in him, not to have min- 
imized as he did the punishment due to original sin in an 
infant, but rather to have magnified the divine mercy in 
saving all infants from it instead of only a part of them. 
It would have been more self-consistent and logical, we 
say, because the verdict of justice is a fixed quantity re- 
specting the intrinsic demerit of original sin, whether in 
an infant or an adult, and may be neither increased nor 
diminished, but mercy may be more or less. Justice can- 
not give two decisions as to whether original sin deserves 
eternal death ; but mercy can give two decisions as to 
whether it will or will not pardon it. Augustine might 
therefore have affirmed the exact and full retribution due 
to original sin in the case of infants as in that of adults, 
and then have affirmed with the later Calvinist that the 
infinite compassion of God frees all of them from the 
dreadful guilt and penalty by the blood of atonement. In 
this instance, where sin abounded grace would super- 
abound. The greater the penalty to which the infant is 
exposed, the greater the mercy in remitting it. The sal- 
vation of an infant in this case means something. Infant 
salvation is real ; for it is the deliverance of a soul that is 
really guilty and liable to endless woe. And it is costly ; 
for it is by the sacrificial death of God incarnate. 

But if the other view of original sin, namely, that it is 
not properly sin, and does not deserve or bring eternal 
death, is adopted in connection with the universal salva- 
tion of dying infants, then indeed there will be a very 
great departure from the Calvinistic system. Another 
meaning is given to " sin " and to " salvation." The evil 
from which the infant is " saved " is very small, and the 
kindness showed to him is very small also. A ''painted 



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CALVINISM : 



sinner," as Lntlier said, lias only a u painted Saviour." It 
was this view of original sin as not damning, that made 
many Calvinists in the seventeenth century afraid to af- 
firm the salvation of all infants ; because at that time the 
two views were combined together by the Arminians. 
Arminian advocates of universal infant salvation rested it 
upon the ground that it would be unjust to condemn in- 
fants to perdition solely because of original sin. Their 
Calvinistic opponents, such as Owen, for example, regarded 
this as a fatal error, leading logically to conclusions re- 
specting the nature of sin and salvation, from which prob- 
ably some of the evangelical Arminians themselves would 
have shrunk. Had the doctrine of the guilt and damna- 
bility of original sin in infants been conceded, it is highly 
probable that Calvinists generally of that century might 
have been more ready, with Calvinists generally of this, 
to make the circle of election large enough to include all 
dying infants, and not a part only. For they had no dis- 
position to contract and minimize the extent of God's de- 
cree of election, but every disposition to widen it, provided 
Scripture gave warrant for it. In the present controversy 
respecting the revision of the Westminster Standards, this 
difference between the two views of Original sin should be 
kept distinctly in mind. The Confession is explicit in 
teaching the culpability of original sin ; and we have seen 
no proposition to strike this teaching out of it. This tenet, 
consequently, must go along with that of infant salvation. 
The mercy of Cod saves the " little children " from the 
very same common depravity and guilt that is in their 
parents, and from the very same dreadful penalty that 
righteously overhangs " the carnal mind, which is enmity 
against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither in- 
deed can be " (Rom. 8 : 7). In this case, the mercy of God 
is immense, because it pardons and eradicates an immense 



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sin ; for the sin of heart and inclination is greater than 
that of act and outward conduct, because it is the source 
and poison of the whole of it. On the other theory, the 
mercy of God is small ; for the only sin that is really for- 
given, is that of actual transgression. 

The doctrine of the damnation of infants is tempered 
and mitigated by that of their salvation. This is often 
overlooked, either ignorantly or designedly, by the oppo- 
nents of Calvinism. It does not follow that because a 
human being deserves to go to hell for sin, he actually will 
go there. His sin may be pardoned and eradicated. The 
truth, but not the uilwle truth, is told, when it is merely 
said that Calvinism teaches the damnation of infants. It 
teaches their salvation also. This is true even if the sal- 
vation is only of the infants of believers, as in the elder 
Calvinism ; and is still more so, if the salvation is of all 
infants as in the later Calvinism. When, therefore, the 
enemy of this creed stops with the first statement, he is 
like a false witness in court, who after relating one fact is 
silent upon another which ought to be mentioned along 
with it, and which is requisite in order to put the judge 
and jury in possession of the whole case. A falsehood 
may be told concerning a theological system, as well by 
not speaking the whole truth, as by uttering a direct lie. 
And there is considerable of such falsehood current. Au- 
gustine and Calvin both held that infants, like adults, are 
children of Adam, responsibly sinned and fell with him in 
the first transgression, and are justly involved with him in 
the same condemnation to eternal death. " In Adam all 
die," 1 Cor. 15 : 22. But both alike held that the saving 
grace of God pardons and eradicates original sin in in- 
fants, upon the same principles, and by the same method 
of election that it pardons and eradicates any and all sin, 
namely, through the vicarious satisfaction of Christ and 



118 



the regenerating operation of tlie Holy Spirit. It is true 
that they did not find proof in Scripture that infant elec- 
tion is classical, and therefore left it individual like that of 
adults. But had they, like their successors in the Modern 
church, seen reason in the Word of God for believing that 
the Divine mercy is extended to all infants as infants, in- 
stead of to a part, they would have gladly affirmed this. 
It is only a question of exegesis between them and their 
successors ; and this turns upon the point whether the 
Saviours declaration, " Of such is the kingdom of God," 
means, " Of all such," or, " Of some of such." 

On page 132 we contend that the first is the most natu- 
ral understanding of the words of Christ, and we also 
think that it is the most natural understanding of the 
Assembly's phraseology respecting " elect infants dying in 
infancy." There are two interpretations of this Confes- 
sional phrase. One makes the antithesis to be, " non-elect 
infants dying in infancy ; " the other makes it to be, 
"elect infants not dying in infancy." According to the 
first view, the contrast is between the elect and the non- 
elect, in which case the election of dying infants is indi- 
vidual. There are some non-elect dying infants. Ac- 
cording to the last, it is between two different classes of 
the elect, in which case the election of dying infants is 
classical. There are no non-elect dying infants. That 
the last view is the correct one is evident, for the follow- 
ing reasons : 

1. Whenever the contrast between the elect and non- 
elect is intended in the Westminster Standards, both 
classes are particularly mentioned and particularly de- 
scribed. See Con. iii. 3, 6, 7; L. C. 13, 68. But in 
Con. x. 3, when dying infants are spoken of. mention is 
made only of the elect, and a description is given of them 
alone. In view, therefore, of the fact that the Assembly 



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119 



invariably mention and describe the non-elect in connec- 
tion with the elect, whenever, in their opinion, there are 
any non-elect, the natural inference from this silence of 
the Assembly concerning non-elect dying infants is, that 
they did not mean to teach that there are any. 

2. All of the elect are elected as infants in the womb. 
Jer. 1:5; Luke 1 : 15 ; Rom. 9 : 10-12 ; Gal. 1 : 15. 
There is no election of men as adults or in adult years. 
Consequently, the phrase " elect infants" is the only one 
that designates the entire body of the elect. As in law, 
" infants " means all persons under age, so in the Westmin- 
ster theology, " elect infants " means all persons who are 
chosen to eternal life " before the foundation of the world." 
This being so, " elect infants" fall into three classes with 
reference to the time of their death and their regeneration. 
(a) " Elect infants "who die in infancy and are regener- 
ated in infancy, (b) " Elect infants " who do not die in 
infancy but are regenerated in infancy, (c) " Elect in- 
fants " who do not die in infancy but are regenerated in 
years of discretion. The object of the declaration in Con. 
x. 3, is to describe the manner in which the regeneration 
of the first class of "elect infants " (and, incidentally, also 
of the second) is effected as compared with that of the third 
class. It declares that such " elect infants " as die in in- 
fancy "are regenerated and saved by Christ through the 
Spirit," without the outward call and conviction of sin. 
This distinguishes them (and also, incidentally, the second 
class, who also are regenerated in infancy but do not die 
in infancy) from the third class of " elect infants," who 
come to years of discretion, and not having been regen- 
erated in infancy, are then "regenerated and saved by 
Christ through the Spirit," in connection with the out- 
ward call and conviction of sin by the law, written or 
unwritten. The true antithesis, consequently, to " elect 



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CALVINISM : 



infants dying in infancy " is " elect infants not dying in 
infancy," and not non-elect infants dying in infancy. 

That this is the correct interpretation of the phrase, 
" elect infants," is corroborated by the fact that the orig- 
inal draft of the tenth chapter of the Confession did not 
contain this third section, being wholly silent concerning 
dying elect infants and elect heathen ; and the Assembly 
instructed its committee to insert a section relating (a) to 
the manner of regeneration when there can be no outward 
call by the ministry of the Word and no conviction of sin, 
as in the case of elect infants dying in infancy ; and (b) to 
the manner of regeneration in the case of " all other elect 
persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by 
the ministry of the [written] Word," but who are capable 
of conviction of sin through the instrumentality of the 
unwritten. These latter belong to the third class of 
" elect infants." An adult heathen who was elected in 
infancy but not regenerated in infancy, is " regenerated 
by Christ through the Spirit who worketh when, and 
where, and how he pleaseth." The regeneration in this 
instance occurs in adult years, and is effected in connec- 
tion with conviction of sin ; but the instrument employed 
by the divine Spirit in this conviction is not the written 
law, but the unwritten, spoken of by St. Paul in Kom. 2 : 
14, 15. 



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121 



XII. 

THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS AND THE "LARGER HOPE " 1 

The doctrines of Calvinism formulated in the Westmin- 
ster Standards are represented by many persons as destin- 
ing the vast majority of the human race to an eternity of 
sin and misery. They are pessimistic, it is said ; envelop- 
ing this brief human life in gloom and darkness. The 
elect are very few ; and the non-elect are very many. 
Practically, the human species is lost forever, like the devil 
and his angels. Over this theological system they would 
write the Dantean inscription on the portal of Hell, "All 
hope abandon, ye who enter here.'' We shall endeavor 
to show that this estimate is utterly erroneous, and that 
" the system of doctrine contained in the Scriptures," and 
presented in the Confession, teaches that an immense ma- 
jority of the human family will be saved by the redemp- 
tion of the dying and risen Son of God and Lord of Glory, 
and that the "larger hope" has ample scope and verge 
enough within its limits. 

Calvinism emphasizes the doctrine of regeneration : the 
doctrine, namely, that God by an instantaneous act im- 
parts the principle of spiritual life to the sinful soul with- 
out its co-operation or assistance, so that the new birth is 
not dependent upon, or conditioned by, man's agency. 
Men who are "born again" are "born not of blood, nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 

1 In part, from the Methodist Quarterly Review, May, 1889. 



122 



CALVINISM : 



God " (John 1 : 13). This doctrine runs all through the 

Westminster Standards. It is closely connected with the 
tenet of election, for this regulates the bestowment of 
regenerating grace. Effectual calling includes it, for a 
prominent factor in this is that work of God whereby he 
" takes away the heart of stone, and gives the heart of 
flesh " (Conf. x. 1). In thus magnifying regeneration, 
the Confession accords with Revelation. For on look- 
ing into the Scriptures, we find that the salvation of the 
human soul is made to depend absolutely upon the new 
birth. Christ said to "Nicodemns, " Except a man be born 
again, lie cannot see the kingdom of God." This implies 
that every man who is born again will see the kingdom of 
God. Regeneration, consequently, decides human des- 
tiny. Whoever knows how many of the human family 
shall have been quickened from spiritual death to spirit- 
ual life, by the mercy of God the Holy Spirit, knows how 
many of them shall be saved. Regeneration determines 
human salvation, because it produces everything requisite 
to it. The great act of faith in the blood of Christ, by 
which the sinner is justified, is described as dependent 
upon it. " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, 
is born of God" (1 John 5: 1). "Xo man can come to 
me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him " 
(John 6 : 44). " Ye believed, even as the Lord gave to 
every man " (1 Cor. 3 : 5). " As many as were ordained 
to eternal life, believed " (Acts 13 : 48). "Unto you it is 
given in the behalf of Christ, to believe on him " (Phil. 
1 : 29). " By grace are ye saved through faith ; and 
that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God " (Eph. 2 : 8). 
" Christ is the author and finisher of faith" (Heb. 12 : 2). 
Faith, repentance, justification, and sanctification all result 
naturally and infallibly from that work of the Holy Spirit, 
whereby he "quickens" the soul "dead in trespasses and 



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sins " (Eph. 2:1), and by " enlightening the mind, and 
renewing the will, persuades and enables man to embrace 
Jesus Christ, freely offered to him in the gospel " (Shorter 
Catechism, 31). Regeneration is thus the root from 
which the whole process of salvation springs. The regen- 
erate child, youth, or man, immediately believes, repents, 
and begins the struggle with remaining sin. The regen- 
erate infant believes, repents, and begins the struggle with 
remaining sin the moment his faculties admit of such 
activities. He has latent or potential faith, repentance, 
and sanctification. 

How extensive then is regeneration, is the great ques- 
tion. In Scripture and in the Confession it is represented 
to be as extensive as election, and no more so. " Whom 
he did predestinate, them he also called ; and whom he 
called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, 
them he also glorified " (Horn. 8 : 30). " All those whom 
God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is 
pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to 
call, by his word and Spirit, out of the state of sin and 
death, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ " (Conf. x. 
1). In attempting, therefore, to answer approximately 
that question which our Lord declined to answer definitely, 
namely, " Are there few that be saved ? " it is necessary, 
first, to determine the period within which the regenerat- 
ing operation of the Holy Spirit occurs ; and, secondly, 
the range of his operation. 

Respecting the first point, revelation teaches that the 
new birth is confined to earth and time. There is not a 
passage in Scripture which, either directly or by implica- 
tion, asserts that the Holy Ghost will exert his regenerat- 
ing power in the soul of man in any part of that endless 
duration which succeeds this life. The affirmation, "My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man " (Gen. 6 : 3), 



124 



CALVINISM : 



proves that the dispensation of the Spirit will not be ever- 
lasting/ and the accompanying declaration, "Yet his 
days shall be a hundred and twenty years," implies that 
it will be coterminous with man's mortal life. Accord- 
ingly, in the Old Testament, the death of the body is rep- 
resented as the decisive epoch in man's existence, and this 
earthly life the period during which his endless destiny is 
determined. " The wicked is driven away in his wick- 
edness [at death] ; but the righteous hath hope in his 
death " (Pro v. 14 : 32). " When a wicked man dieth, his 
expectation shall perish " (Prov. 11 : 7). " If thou warn 
the wicked of his way to turn from it ; if he do not turn 
from his w T ay, he shall die in his iniquity " (Ezek. 33 : 9). 
" To him that is joined to all the living, there is hope : for 
the living know that they shall die ; but the dead know 
not anything, neither have they any more a reward " 
(Eccl. 9 : 4-6). " In death there is no remembrance of 
thee ; in the grave, who shall give thee thanks? " (Ps. 6 : 
5). " Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the 
dead arise and praise thee ? Shall thy loving-kindness be 
declared in the grave?" (Ps. 88:10, 11). In the New 
Testament, the Saviour of man also makes death to be the 
critical point in man's history. lie says to the Pharisees, 
" If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins " 
(John 8 : 21, 24). This solemn warning, which he twice 
repeats, loses all its force, if to die in sin is not to be hope- 
lessly lost. Christ teaches the same truth in the parable 
of Dives. The rich man asks that his brethren may be 
exhorted to faith and repentance before they die, because 
if impenitent at death as he was, they will go to " hell " 
as he did, and be " in torments " as he was. And he 
teaches the same truth in his frequent warning, " Watch, 
therefore, for ye know not at what hour your Lord Com- 
eth" (Matt. 24:42). The Apostolical Epistles declare 



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the momentous nature of death, in their frequent asser- 
tion of " an accepted time," and of "the da} 7 of salva- 
tion " (2 Cor. 6:2; Heb. 3 : 7-19 ; 4 : 7). The closing up 
of the Word of God by St. John, affirms a finality that 
evidently refers to what man has been and done here on 
earth. " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and 
he which is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is 
righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, 
let him be holy still " (Kev. 22 : 11, 12). 

Still further proof that death is the deciding point in 
man's existence, is found in those effects of regeneration 
which have been spoken of. Faith, repentance, hope, 
and struggle with remaining sin are never represented in 
Scripture as occurring in the future life. After death the 
regenerate walks by sight, not by faith ; has fruition in- 
stead of hope ; and is completely sanctified. Faith, re- 
pentance, hope, and progressive sanctification are de- 
scribed as going on up to a certain point denominated 
" the end" when they give place to sinless perfection. 
" He that endureth to the end shall be saved : " the end 
of this state of existence, not of the intermediate state. 
" We desire that every one of you do show the same 
diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." 
" Christ shall confirm you unto the end." " Whose house 
are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of 
the hope unto the end." In all such passages, the end of 
» this mortal life is meant. And to them must be added 
the important eschatological paragraph, 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28, 
which teaches that there is an " end " to Christ's work of 
mediation and salvation, when " there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sins " (Heb. 10 : 26). 

The large amount of matter in Scripture which teaches 
that the operation of the Spirit in the new birth and its 
effects belongs only to this life, cannot be invalidated by 



126 



CALVINISM : 



the lonely text concerning Christ's " preaching to the 
spirits in prison:" a passage which the majority of exe- 
getes, taking in all ages of the Church, refer to the preach- 
ing of Noah and other " ambassadors of Christ ; " but 
which, even if referred to a personal descent of Christ into 
an under world, would be inadequate to establish such a 
revolutionizing doctrine as the prolongation of Christ's 
mediatorial work into the future state, the preaching of 
the gospel in sheol, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost 
there. For the dogma of a future redemption for all 
the unevangelized part of mankind is radically revolution- 
izing. It is another gospel, and if adopted would result 
in another Christendom. For nearly twenty centuries, the 
Church has gone upon the belief that there is no salvation 
after death. All of its conquests over evil have come from 
preaching the solemn truth that " now is the day of salva- 
tion." It has believed itself to be commanded to proclaim 
that " after death is the judgment " of sin, not its forgive- 
ness. But if the Church has been mistaken, and there is 
a " probation " in the future life for all the unevangelized 
of all the centuries, and it is announced, as all the truth 
of God ought to be, then the eternal world will present a 
totally different aspect from what it has. Heretofore the 
great Hereafter has been a gulf of darkness for every im- 
penitent man, heathen or nominal Christian, as he peered 
into it. Now it will be a darkness through which gleams 
of light and hope are flashing like an aurora'. The line 
between time and eternity, so sharply drawn by the past 
Christianity and Christendom, must be erased. A differ- 
ent preaching must be adopted. Hope must be held out 
instead of the old hopelessness. Death must no longer be 
represented as a finality, but as an entrance for all une- 
vangelized mankind upon another period of regeneration 
and salvation. Men must be told that the Semiramises 



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127 



and Cleopatras, the Tiberiuses and JSeros, may possibly 
have accepted the gospel in hades. Children in the Sab- 
bath-schools must be taught that the vicious and hardened 
populations of the ancient world, of Sodom and Gomor- 
rah, of Babylon and Xineveh, of Antioch and Rome, 
passed into a world of hope and redemption, not of justice 
and judgment. 

Such a doctrine takes away all the seriousness of this 
existence. The " threescore years and ten " are no longer 
momentous in their consequences. If the future world is 
a series of cycles, within any one of which the transition 
from sin to holiness, from death to life, may occur, all the 
solemnity is removed from earth and time. The "now" 
is not "the accepted time, and the day of salvation." 
One " time " is of no more consequence than another, if 
through all endless time the redemption of sinners is go- 
ing on. And what is still more important, the moral and 
practical effects of this theory will be most disastrous. 
For it is virtually a license to sin. Should God announce 
that he w T ill regenerate and pardon men in the next world, 
it would be equivalent to saying to them that they may 
continue to sin in this world. And, of course, if the 
Church should believe that all the unevangelized portion 
of mankind may be saved in the intermediate state, it will 
make little effort to save them here and now. 

With these representations of Scripture, respecting the 
period of time within which the regeneration and salva- 
tion of the soul occur, the Westminster Standards agree. 
" The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in 
holiness, and do immediately pass into glory " (S. C. 37). 
"The souls of the wicked are at their death cast into 
hell" (L. C. 86). The Confessional doctrine is, that death 
is a finality for both the saint and sinner. There is no 
extirpation of sin after " the spirit returns to God who 



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gave it." At death, the unregenerate man is left in sin. 
At death, the regenerate but imperfectly sanctified man 
is made perfect in holiness. The gradual process of pro- 
gressive sanctification from the remainders of original 
corruption, is confined to this life. So the Scriptures 
teach. " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from 
henceforth [i.e., from the time of their death] : Yea, 
saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors" 
(Rev. 14: 13). "There remaineth a rest to the people 
of God. Let us therefore labor to enter into that rest 
(Heb. 4: 9, 11). This " rest" is total cessation from the 
temptation, the race, and the fight with sin which charac- 
terize the present imperfect state. " To be absent from 
the body, is to be present with the Lord " (2 Cor. 5:8); 
and to be present with the Lord is to " see him as he is; " 
and to see him as he is, is to " be like him," sinless and 
perfect (1 John 3 : 2). 

The doctrine that gradual sanctification from sin con- 
tinues to go on after death implies, not rest, but strug- 
gle, strain, toil, and conflict with remaining corruption. 
This would be a continuation in the next life of that se- 
vere experience in this life in which the believer " groans 
being burdened ; " in which he is often worsted in the 
contest, though victorious in the main ; in which he cries, 
"O wretched man, who shall deliver me." To suppose 
such a wearisome condition of the believer's soul during 
the long period between death and the resurrection, can- 
not be harmonized with the descriptions of the restful, 
joyful consciousness of believers when they are " with the 
Lord," and with the words of Christ, "This day shalt 
thou be with me in paradise." 

The notion that indwelling sin is to be purged away 
gradually after death, instead of instantaneously at death, 
is the substance of the doctrine of purgatory. The Romish 



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purgatory is the progressive sanctification of a member 
of the Romish Church carried over into the intermediate 
state. If this theory is introduced into the Protestant 
Church, it will not stop here. For if regenerate but 
imperfectly sanctified men are to go on, between death 
and the resurrection, struggling with corruption, and get- 
ting rid of remaining sin, as they do here upon earth, it 
will be an easy and natural step to the kindred theory 
that the transition from sin to holiness may be made by 
unregenerate men also during this same period. Those 
who adopt this latter error, object to the Confessional 
tenet of complete sanctification at death by the immediate 
operation of the Holy Spirit that it is magical, mechanical, 
and unpsychological. It is incompatible, they assert, with 
the spiritual nature of the soul and its free agency. But 
it is no more so than the co-ordinate and cognate doctrine 
of the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit in regener- 
ation. The Holy Spirit instantaneously implants the new 
principle of divine life in the soul, when he " creates it 
anew in Christ Jesus," and "quickens it from its death in 
trespasses and sins." This lays the foundation, as we 
have observed for the whole process of salvation. From 
this instantaneous regeneration, there result conversion in 
its two acts of faith and repentance, justification, and pro- 
gressive sanctification up to the moment of death, when 
the same Divine Agent by the exercise of the same 
almighty energy by which he instantaneously began the 
work of salvation, instantaneously completes it. 1 Xow, 
if the Holy Ghost works magically, mechanically, and 
contrary to the nature of the human soul in one case, he 
does in the other. If the completion of the work in the 
soul by an immediate act is liable to this charge, the be- 

1 For a fuller discussion of the subject, see the Author's Sermons to 
the Spiritual Man, pp. 317-325. 
9 



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ginning of it is also. Any one who holds the doctrine of 
instantaneous regeneration, is estopped from urging such 
an objection as this to the doctrine of complete sanctifica- 
tion at death. In all the operations of the third Person of 
the Trinity, be they instantaneous or be they gradual, he 
contradicts none of the laws and properties of the human 
mind, but works in the human will " to will," according 
to its nature and constitution. There is nothing magical, 
mechanical, or unpsychological in any of them. 

Another objection urged by the advocates of a future 
sanctification from sin is, that complete sanctification at 
death puts all souls, infant and adult, on a dead level, 
destroying the distinction of grade between them. If at 
death all regenerate souls are made perfectly sinless and 
holy, it is said that they must be all alike in the 
scope and reach of their faculties. This does not follow. 
Complete sanctification at death frees the soul of a regen- 
erate infant from all remainders of the corruption in- 
herited from Adam, but does not convert it into an adult 
soul, any more than the complete sanctification of an or- 
dinary regenerate adult makes him equal in mental power 
to St. Paul or St. Augustine. Complete sanctification at 
death frees the infant's soul, the child's soul, the youth's 
soul, the man's soul, from indwelling sin, but leaves each 
soul in the same class in which it finds it, and starts it on 
an endless expansion of its faculties and its holiness, and 
not upon a long, wearing struggle with remaining corrup- 
tion. In this way, " one star differeth from another star 
in glory," while all are equally and alike the pure and 
gleaming stars of heaven, not the " wandering stars " of 
sin and hell. 

Such, then, is the period of time to which the regener- 
ating work of the Holy Spirit is confined. It is the life 
that now is, not the life that is to come; the present 



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limited seon, not the future unlimited aeon. We proceed 
now to consider the second question, How wide and exten- 
sive is his agency during this period ? How many of the 
human family, have we reason from Scripture to hope 
and believe, he will regenerate here upon earth ? 

Before proceeding to answer this question, a prelimin- 
ary remark is to be made. It is utterly improbable that 
such a stupendous miracle as the incarnation, humilia- 
tion, passion, and crucifixion of one of the Persons of the 
Godhead, should yield a small and insignificant result ; 
that this amazing mystery of mysteries, " which the angels 
desire to look into," and which involves such an immense 
personal sacrifice on the part of the Supreme Being, 
should have a lame and impotent conclusion. On a priori 
grounds, therefore, we have reason to conclude that the 
Gospel of the Cross will be successful, and the Christian 
religion a triumph on the earth and among the race of 
creatures for whom it was intended. But this can hardly 
be the case, if only a small fraction of the human family 
are saved. The presumption, consequently, is that the 
great majority of mankind, not the small minority of it, 
will be the subjects of redeeming grace. What, then, is 
the teaching of Revelation upon this subject ? 

1. In the first place, we have ground for believing that 
all of mankind who die in infancy will be regenerated by 
the Holy Spirit. The proof of this is not so abundant as 
for some other doctrines, but it is sufficient for faith, (a) 
Scripture certainly teaches that the children of the regen- 
erate are " bound up in the bundle of life " with their 
parents. " The promise [of the Holy Spirit] is unto you 
and your children" (Acts 2:38,39). " If the root be 
holy, so are the branches" (Rom. 11 : 16). "The unbe- 
lieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbe- 
lieving wife is sanctified by the husband ; else were your 



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children unclean, but now they are holy" (I Cor. 7 : 14). 
This is salvation by covenanted mercy, concerning which 
there is little dispute, (b) The salvation of infants out- 
side of the covenant, is plainly supported by the language 
of Christ respecting " little children " as a special class. 
" They brought unto him infants that he would touch 
them. And he said, Suffer little children to come unto 
me, for of such is the kingdom of God " (Luke 18 : 15, 16). 
The reason here assigned why infants constitute a part 
of the kingdom of God is their infancy, not their mor- 
al character. They belong to it solely because they are 
" little children," not because they are sinless. Our Lord 
teaches that they are sinful, in saying, " Suffer little 
children to come unto me ; " for no sinless beings need to 
come to a Saviour. This phraseology respecting infants 
is as all-inclusive as that respecting the " poor in spirit," 
and cannot be restricted to a part of them. When Christ 
says, " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king- 
dom of heaven," he means that this kingdom belongs to 
them as poor in spirit, and because they are poor in spirit, 
and consequently belongs to all the poor in spirit. And, 
similarly, when he says, ''Suffer little children to come 
unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God," he means 
that this kingdom is composed of such considered as little 
children, and because they are little children, and conse- 
quently is composed of all the little children. Had lie 
intended to limit his statement to some infants, he would 
have said, itc tcov tolgvtcdv early. Infancy is an age 
that is singled out by the Saviour by which to prove a 
membership in the kingdom of God from the very age 
itself, and is the only age. He does not say that youths 
or adults constitute a part of the kingdom of God solely 
because of their youth, or their manhood. Other Scripture 
proofs of the salvation of infants are, Matt. IS : 10, 14, 



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" Their angels do always behold the face of my Father in 
heaven. It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven 
that one of these little ones should perish." In 2 Sam. 
12 : 23, David is confident of the salvation of his infant 
child; but in 2 Sam. 18: 33, he is not confident of the sal- 
vation of his adult son. In Jonah 4 : 11, God expresses a 
special interest in the infant population of Nineveh. 

The Protestant Church understands the Bible to de- 
clare that all who die in infancy die regenerate. Probably 
all evangelical denominations, without committing them- 
selves to the statements of the Westminster Confession 
concerning " election," would be willing to say that all 
dying infants " are regenerated and saved by Christ 
through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and 
how he pleaseth " (Conf. x. 3). But this is the regenera- 
tion and salvation of one-half of the human family. This 
of itself pours over human existence a mild and cheering 
light. " Whom the gods love, die young," said the heathen, 
without any knowledge of God's compassion for man in 
his "dear Son." Much more, then, may the Christian 
under the irradiation of the gospel expect that the infinite 
mercy of God, by "the washing of regeneration and re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost," will bring all the "little chil- 
dren " into holiness and heaven. The gloom of Virgil's 
description, 

"Continuo audita voces, vagitus et ingens 
Infantumque animse flentes in limine primo," 

is changed into the brightness of that of the prophet, 
"The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls 
playing in the streets thereof " (Zech. 8 : 10) ; and of the 
Redeemer's citation from the Psalms, " Out of the mouth 
of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise " (Matt. 
21:16). 



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2. In the second place, the Scriptures and the Confes- 
sion teach the regeneration of a vast multitude, from 
Adam down, who come under the operation of the Holy 
Spirit in connection with the special revelation and the 
external means of grace, in the antediluvian, patriarchal, 
Jewish, and Christian Churches. 

3. In the third place, the Scriptures and the Confession 
teach that the Divine Spirit exerts his regenerating grace, 
to some extent, within adult heathendom, making use of 
conscience, or "the law written on the heart," as the 
means of convicting of sin preparatory to imparting the 
new divine life ; and that in the last day a part of God's 
elect "shall come from the east and from the west, and 
from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in 
the kingdom of God " (Luke 13 : 29). These are all re- 
generated in this life. And since regeneration in the in- 
stance of the adult immediately produces faith and re- 
pentance, a regenerate heathen is both a believer and a 
penitent. He feels sorrow for sin, and the need of mercy. 
This felt need of mercy and desire for it is potentially 
and virtually faith in the Redeemer. For although the 
Redeemer has not been presented to him historically and 
personally as the object of faith, yet the Divine Spirit by 
the new birth has wrought in him the sincere and longing 
disposition to believe in him. With the penitent and 
believing man in the Gospel, he says, "Who is he, Lord, 
that I might believe on him?" (John 9 : 36). Such a man 
is " regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit," 
and belongs to that class of " elect persons who are in- 
capable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the 
word " (Conf. x. 3). 

4. In the fourth place, in addition to all this work of 
the Holy Spirit in the past and present in applying in 
these three ways the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 



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there is that mightiest and most wonderful manifestation 
of his power which is still in reserve for the future of 
Christendom. The Scriptures promise an outpouring in 
the "last days," that will far exceed in sweeping and irre- 
sistible energy anything in the past history of the Church. 
" I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh," says God 
(Joel 2:28). "It shall come to pass in the last days, 
that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established 
in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it " (Isa. 2:2; 
Micah 4:1). A far more profound and all-reaching in- 
terest in the concerns of the soul and its eternal destiny 
than has ever been witnessed on earth, will mark the mil- 
lennium. The then near and impending advent of the 
Son of man, "when he shall come in his glory, and all 
the holy angels with him, and before him shall be gath- 
ered all nations" (Matt. 25:31, 32), will weigh heavily 
upon mankind. The end of the world and the approach- 
ing judgment will be facts of infinite meaning. This hu- 
man life, now so frivolous, will become serious and awful. 

" The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a soher coloring from the eye 
That doth keep watch o'er man's mortality." 

Vast masses of sinful men will be bowed down in poig- 
nant conviction, and nations will be born in a day. The 
Redeemer, " travelling in the greatness of his strength," 
will take unto him his mighty power, and turn the human 
heart as the rivers of water. Such is the promise and the 
prophecy of Almighty God. 

Now this is a great salvation. "Where sin abounded, 
grace has superabounded " (Rom. 5 : 20). The immense 
majority of the race that fell in Adam will be saved in 
Christ, " by the washing of regeneration." Though some 



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men and angels will freely persist in depravity, and be left 
in their persistence, yet this minor and mournful note of 
discord will only enhance the choral harmony of the uni- 
verse. The wrath of man shall praise God (Ps. 76 : 10). 
The duty of the Church is to preach to every creature the 
law by which men are convicted of sin, and the gospel by 
which it is pardoned and eradicated, praying unceasingly 
for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, to make both law 
and gospel effectual to salvation. Instead of starting a 
false and delusive hope for the future redemption of a 
part of the human family, by daring to reconstruct God's 
plan of redemption and extending the dispensation of his 
Spirit into the next life, the Church should strengthen the 
old and true hope by doing with its might what its hands 
find to do, and crying with the evangelical prophet, 
"Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord" 
(Isa. 51 : 9). 1 

1 It should be observed that the "larger hope " that the Divine Mercy 
may save a part of the unevangelized millions of mankind does not re- 
quire the extension of the work of redemption beyond this life. The 
" washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost" can accom- 
plish this salvation here in this world, before the spirit leaves the 
body and " returns to God who gave it," as easily as it can in the mid- 
dle state. Instead, then, of hoping that there may be a second period 
of redemption, for which there is no more Scripture foundation than 
for a second incarnation ; let the hope rather be that the merciful Re- 
deemer, who is "mighty to save," may here, and in this "day of salva- 
tion," save a part of the heathen world. He himself asserts his own 
sovereignty in this matter, and declares that some whose outward cir- 
cumstances were favorable to salvation will be lost, and that some whose 
outward circumstances were unfavorable will be saved. " There shall 
be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you 
yourselves cast out. And they shall come from the east, and from the 
west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in 
the kingdom of God. And behold there are last which shall be first, 
and there are first which shall be last" (Luke 13 : 28-30). 



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XIII. 

THE WESTMINSTER AFFIRMATION OF THE ORIGINAL IN- 
ERRANCY OF THE SCRIPTURES 

Those who deny the inerrancy of the original auto- 
graphs of Scripture, and are endeavoring to introduce this 
view into Biblical Criticism, claim the support of the 
Westminster Standards. We propose to show that the 
Westminster Confession teaches that the Scriptures in 
their first form, as they came from the prophets and 
apostles, were free from error in all their parts, secondary 
as well as primary. 

. 1. In the first place, the Confession (i. 2, 8) declares that 
" the Word of God as written in Hebrew and Greek was 
immediately inspired by God." This relates to the auto- 
graphs of the " holy men of God " while under the Divine 
afflatus or inbreathing. 2 Pet. 1 : 21. And it relates to 
them in their entirety, because no exceptions are made. 
The inspiration was plenary, not partial. It extended not 
to one subject only, but to all the subjects of which the 
sacred writers treat, and on which they profess to teach 
the truth. The history, chronology, topography, and 
physics, as well as the theology and ethics, that were com- 
posed under the " immediate inspiration " of God, must 
from the nature of the case have been free from er- 
ror. In the original Bible as it came from the inspired 
prophets and apostles, there was no mythical and fabu- 
lous history, no exaggerated and fictitious chronology like 
that of Egypt, India, and some modern physicists, the 



138 



CALVINISM 



topography was strikingly accurate as modern explorations 
show, and the physics, especially in the account of the 
creative days, contained none of the pantheism and poly- 
theism of the ancient cosmogonies, and is corroborated 
by modern science so far as this is well established. In 
thus declaring that the Bible as a complete whole was 
written in Hebrew and Greek by persons who were un- 
der the " immediate inspiration " of God, the Confession 
teaches that in this first original form it was inerrant. 
There is no escaping this conclusion, unless it can be 
shown that immediate inspiration may be more or less 
erroneous and misleading. 

2. In the second place, the Confession (i. 8) declares 
that " the Old Testament in Hebrew and the Kew Testa- 
ment in Greek, being immediately inspired by God, is by 
his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, and 
is therefore authenticai [i.e. authoritative], so that in all 
controversies of religion the church is finally to appeal to 
them." This relates to the cojnes of the original auto- 
graphs. The Confession does not say that these were 
made under the "immediate inspiration " of God as the 
autographs were, but under the " singular care and provi- 
dence " of God. The copies consequently are liable to 
the introduction of errors, because the providential care 
of God, even though it be " singular " and remarkable, 
is not the same thing as the "immediate inspiration" 
of God. While, therefore, absolute inerrancy is attribu- 
ted by the Confession to the original manuscript, it is 
not to the copies of them. The immediate inspiration 
of a prophet or apostle, extending as the Confession de- 
clares to the "Word as written, excludes all error from 
the written production, but the providential superin- 
tendence of a copyist does not. God has permitted some 
things in the providential transmission and preservation 



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139 



of the several books of Scripture, which he did not per- 
mit in the direct inspiration of them. He has allowed 
glosses on the margin to get into the text, numerals 
represented by letters of the alphabet to be altered by 
carelessness, a frequent cause of discrepancies in the Old 
Testament, clauses to be omitted from homceoteleuton, or 
added by paraphrase or from ancient liturgies, and 
other variations of this kind. But he did not allow any of 
these variations and errors to get into the original writing, 
as it came from the inspired penman who composed it. 
And there is no reason, in the nature of the case, for as- 
serting that he did. Does it follow that because the exist- 
ing copies of 1 Sam. 6 : 19 contain the statement that 
50,070 men were slain for looking into the ark, that the 
autograph also did? Because the copies of the autographs 
of the New Testament contain 30,000 variations according 
to Mill, and 150,000 according to Scrivener, must we as- 
sume that the autographs themselves had all these, or 
any of them % 

But while the Confession ascribes providential superin- 
tendence, not immediate inspiration, to the copyist, it 
claims for all copies of the autographs a relative in dis- 
tinction from an absolute inerrancy. The " singular care 
and providence of God keeps them pure in all ages so that 
they are anthentical," that is, authoritative, and "in all 
controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal 
to them." Con. i. 8. The minor and unimportant er- 
rors of the class above mentioned, which have been al- 
lowed by Divine providence to get into the copies, do not 
make any radical and essential alterations in the auto- 
graphs. A student of the copy to-day will obtain from 
it the same doctrine, the same history, the same chro- 
nology, the same topography, and the same physics, that 
he would from the original autograph if he could have 



140 



GAJrVTNISM : 



access to it. The doctrines of the trinity, the incarnation, 
the apostasy, and the redemption, are confessedly un- 
affected by any of these variations in the history or topog- 
raphy. And the Biblical chronology itself is not es- 
sentially altered by the numerical errors which the care- 
lessness of the copyist has introduced. For example, the 
contradiction between 2 Kings S : '26 and 2 Chron. 22 : 
2. in the existing manuscripts, does not invalidate the 
chronology of the fifth and the eleventh chapters of 
Genesis. There is nothing in any of the alleged or the 
actual chronological mistakes in any of the copies of the 
Scriptures, that necessitates the rejection of the Biblical 
chronology which brings the whole of human history be- 
fore the Advent within a period of four or six thousand 
years, according as the Hebrew or the Septuagint text is 
adopted. And this remark applies also to the verst'oiis of 
Scripture which have been and will be made by the 
Chinch. These convey to the nations of mankind the 
same doctrine, history, chronology, topography, and 
physics that were taught by the prophets and apostles, al- 
though they contain some errors in translation. 

The question is asked in the way of objection to this 
declaration of the Confession, Why did not God inspire 
the copyists as well as the original authors '{ Why did lie 
begin with absolute inerrancy, and end with relative in- 
errancy ? For the same reason that, generally, he begins 
with the supernatural and ends with the natural. For 
illustration, the first founding of his church, in both the 
Old and Xew dispensations, was marked by miracles; but 
the development of it is marked only by his operations in 
nature, providence, and grace. The miracle was needed 
in order to begin the kingdom of God in this sinful world, 
but is not needed in order to its continuance and progress. 
And the same is true of the revelation of God in his 



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141 



written Word. This must hegin in a miracle. The truths 
and facts of revealed religion, as distinguished from nat- 
ural, must be supernatural Ij communicated to a few par- 
ticular persons especially chosen for this purpose. Inspi- 
ration comes under the category of the miracle. It is 
as miraculous as raising the dead. To expect, therefore, 
that God would continue inspiration to copyists after hav- 
ing given it to prophets and apostles, would be like expect- 
ing that because in the first century he empowered men 
to raise the dead, he would continue to do so in all cen- 
turies. If this had been necessary, if God could not have 
extended and perpetuated his church without the contin- 
uance of miracles, doubtless he would have wrought mir- 
acles perpetually ; for we can not suppose that Omnipo- 
tence would suffer itself to be defeated in any undertak- 
ing. But whatever can be accomplished by his ordinary 
methods in nature, providence, and grace, God so accom- 
plishes. 

[Now, this applies to divine revelation. The Scriptures 
could not have been originated and written down in the 
vernacular of the prophets and apostles without an in- 
errant and infallible inspiration, and as thus originated 
and written they were perfect, containing no error. God 
the Holy Spirit inspires no error, great or small. This 
is miracle. But these Scriptures can be copied into thou- 
sands of manuscripts, so that these shall substantially 
reproduce the autographs in doctrine, history, physics, 
chronology, geography ; in short, in everything that goes 
to make up the Scriptures. This latter process is not 
supernatural and preclusive of all error, but providential 
and natural and allowing of some error. But this sub- 
stantial reproduction, this relative " purity " of the origi- 
nal text as copied, is sufficient for the Divine purposes in 
carrying forward the work of redemption in the world. 



142 



CALVINISM : 



But had the employment of this method of special provi- 
dence involved the radical alteration of the original auto- 
graphs, so as to introduce essential and fatal error into 
them, then doubtless it would not have been employed, 
but the copyists as well as the prophets and apostles 
would have been supernaturally " moved by the Holy 
Ghost," and their copies would have been exact facsimiles 
of the autographs. 

One or the other view of the Scriptures must be 
adopted ; either that they were originally inerrant and 
infallible, or that they were originally errant and fallible. 
The first view is that of the church in all ages : the last 
is that of the rationalist in all ages. He who adopts the 
first view, will naturally bend all his efforts to eliminate the 
errors of copyists and harmonize discrepancies, and there- 
by bring the existing manuscripts nearer to the original 
autographs. By this process, the errors and discrepancies 
gradually diminish, and belief in the infallibility of Script- 
ure is strengthened. He who adopts the second view, 
will naturally bend all his efforts to perpetuate the mis- 
takes of scribes, and exaggerate and establish discrepancies. 
By this process, the errors and discrepancies gradually in- 
crease, and disbelief in the infallibility of Scripture is 
strengthened. That the theory of the original errancy 
and fallibility of Scripture as it came from the prophets 
and apostles should be maintained and defended by the 
rationalistic critic, is comprehensible — his hostility to the 
supernatural explains it — but that it should be maintained 
and defended by professedly evangelical critics, is inex- 
plicable, except on the supposition that they do not per- 
ceive the logical result of the theory, and its exceedingly 
destructive influence upon the belief of mankind in Divine 
Revelation. 

Xearly forty years ago, the author, in criticising the 



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theory strongly and eloquently presented by Coleridge in 
his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, that the secondary 
sections of Scripture contain more or less of error, while 
the primary section relating to doctrine is inerrant, made 
the following objections to it, which he has seen no reason 
to modify. " We are aware that Coleridge believed that 
the Scriptures are infallible on all fundamental subjects, 
and that those doctrines which in common with the Chris- 
tian Church he regarded as vital to human salvation, 
are all infallibly revealed in them. This separates him 
heaven-wide from a mere rationalist, and places him in 
the same general class with the evangelical school of theo- 
logians in Germany, in respect to the doctrine of inspira- 
tion. Still, we regard it as an error in him and in them, 
that the canon is not contemplated as a complete whole, 
having a common origin in the Divine Mind, in such 
sense that as a body of information it is infallibly correct 
on all the subjects upon which it purports to teach truth. 
There must be truth, in distinction from error, upon even 
the most unimportant particulars of history, chronology, 
topography, and physics constituting a part of the subject- 
matter of the Bible, and it is altogether the most rational 
to assume that it is to be found in the Biblical statements 
themselves if thej^ are inspired of God. These secondary 
subjects are an important, and sometimes a vital part of 
the total Word of God. The biographic memoirs of the 
Redeemer are an instance. If these are not inerrant as 
history and chronology, then the Christian religion itself 
disappears ; for the Personage in whom it centres becomes 
mythical, instead of historic. Hence in the contest be- 
tween rationalism and supernaturalism, the narratives in 
the four Gospels have been the hottest part of the battle- 
field. Consider again the long and detailed narratives of 
the exodus of the Israelites, and their wanderings for 



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forty years. If these were not the inspired product of 
their leader and law-giver, but the compilation and inven- 
tion of unknown persons living a thousand years after 
Moses, and in an environment wholly different from that 
of Egypt and the Sinaitic peninsula, this fictitious 
secondary matter will drag the primary along with it. 
Mankind will not believe that the theology and ethics of 
the decalogue, the sacrifices, types, and symbols of the 
Levitical institute, and the religion of the theocracy, came 
supernaturally from God, if they are imbedded in a 
mythical history and chronology like that of Egypt and 
India. The secondary sections of which we are speaking, 
are so integrated into the solid doctrinal substance of the 
Bible, that they cannot be taken out of it any more than 
the veins can be from the solid marble. Why then is it 
not probable that they had the same common origin with 
the doctrines and fundamental truths themselves which 
are encrusted and crystallized in them — in other words, 
that the Divine Spirit, whether as positively revealing, or 
as inspiring and superintending, is the ultimate Author 
of the whole? There are but two objections to this posi- 
tion. The first is, that the inspired writers become there- 
by mere amanuenses and automata. This objection has 
no force for one who believes that the Divine can, and 
does dwell and work in the human in the most real and 
absolute manner, without in the least mutilating or sup- 
pressing the human, and ought not to be urged by one 
who believes in the actuation of the regenerate soul by 
the Holy Spirit. As in this instance the human cannot 
be separated from the Divine, in the individual conscious- 
ness, and all ' the fruits of the Spirit' seem to be the very 
spontaneity of the human soul itself, so in the origina- 
tion of the entire body of Holy Writ, while all, even 
the minutest parts, have the flexibility, naturalness, and 



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freshness of purely human products, there is yet in and 
through them all the unerring agency of the Supreme 
Mind. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the organizing 
power and principle in the outstanding body of knowledge 
and information which is called the Bible, and, working 
like every organizing power thoroughly and completely, 
produces a whole that is characterized by His own char- 
acteristic perfection of knowledge, even as the principle 
of life in the natural world diffuses itself, and produces 
all the characteristic marks of life, out to the rim of the 
tiniest leaf. The second objection, and a fatal one if it 
can be maintained, is, that there are actual errors in the 
Scriptures on points respecting which they profess to 
teach the truth. Let this be proved if it can be; but un- 
til it has been demonstrated incontrovertible, the Chris- 
tian Church is consistent in asserting the infallibility of 
the written Word in all its elements and parts. We say 
this with confidence, because out of the large number of 
alleged errors and contradictions that have been urged 
against the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, by scep- 
tics of all grades from Celsus and Porphyry down to 
Spinoza and Strauss, none are established as such on 
grounds that make it absurd for the defender of the doc- 
trine to deny the allegation, and attempt an explanation 
and reconciliation of the difficulty. There are many per- 
plexities remaining, we grant, but while there is not an 
instance in which the unprejudiced and truly scientific 
study of the Bible has resulted in demonstrating beyond 
dispute that an inspired prophet or apostle has taught 
error of any kind, there are many instances in which it 
has resulted in favor of plenary inspiration. No one ac- 
quainted with the results of the severe and sceptical 
criticism to which the canon lias been subjected by the 
English deists of the eighteenth centuiw, and the Gen nan 
10 



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CALVINISM : 



rationalists of the nineteenth, will deny that the number 
of apparent contradictions and errors is smaller now than 
at the beginning of the controversy, and that the Divine 
origin and authority of the Old and ^ew Testaments are 
resting on broader, deeper, and tinner foundations than 
ever." Shedd : Literary Essays, 337-340. 

Those who deny the inerrancy of the original auto- 
graphs of the Scriptures are also chargeable with another 
misunderstanding of the Confession. They confound " the 
testimony of any man or church " spoken of in Con. i. 4, 
with "the testimony of the church " spoken of in Con. i. 
5. In endeavoring, contrary to all the Christian apolo- 
getics of the past, to sever entirely the inspiration of the 
Scriptures from their authorship and authenticity, and to 
make belief in them depend solely upon the inward wit- 
ness of the Spirit, thereby abolishing historical faith and 
retaining only saving faith, they argue that the exclu- 
sion of " the testimony of any man or church" spoken of 
in Con. i. 4, excludes "the testimony of the church" 
spoken of in Con. i. 5, and cite the former to show that 
the external evidence for the authenticity of Scripture 
which comes from the tradition of the Jewish and early 
Christian churches is not needed in order to prove its 
inspiration, or to strengthen confidence in it. In so doing 
they confound authority with authenticity, and overlook 
the two different uses of the term " testimony " in the 
Confession. In Con. i. 4, the authority of the Scripture is 
spoken of, and the " testimony " meant is testimony to 
the truth. In Con. i. 5, the authenticity of Scripture is 
spoken of, and the " testimony " meant is testimony to 
the authorship and genuineness of a writing. An exami- 
nation of the two sections will show this. 

Con. i. 4 declares that " the authority of Scripture de- 
pendeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, 



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but wholly upon God, who is the author of it." " Testi- 
mony," here, is used in the sense of teaching, declaring 
and communicating truth. The proof text cited from 1 
John 5: 9 evinces this : "If we receive the witness of 
men, the witness of God is greater." To which may be 
added, with many another passage, John 5 : 32, 34 : "I 
receive not testimony from men ; there is another that 
beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which 
he witnesseth of me is true." Truth which God testifies 
to and so is the author of, has infallible authority ; but 
truth which" any manor church " testifies to and so is the 
author of, is fallible. 

Con. i. 5 declares that " we may be induced by the 
testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem for 
the Holy Scriptures." This relates to the authenticity of 
the Bible ; namely, to the fact of its being the genuine 
product of those inspired prophets and apostles through 
whom God ' ; testified" in the sense of Con. i. 4, and made 
his revelation of truth, in distinction from being the forged 
product of unknown men outside of the circle of prophets 
and apostles, writing centuries later. The " testimony " 
spoken of in this section is not the teaching, declaring, and 
communicating of divine truth, but merely bearing wit- 
ness that such and such persons wrote such and such parts 
of Scripture. The Jewish and early Christian churches, 
in rendering this important service, whereby the genuine- 
ness of the sacred writings is established by the same kind 
of testimony by which that of secular writings is proved, 
did not claim to be the authors of the Bible, or that it got 
its authority from them, but only to know that certain 
men who gave evidence by visible miraculous signs of be- 
ing called and inspired of God wrote certain books of 
Scripture. Such external testimony as this to the genuine- 
ness of Scripture, supported by the infinitely higher testi- 



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mony of Christ to the same effect in regard to the Old 
Testament, is as necessary in order to faith in it as a 
divine book as is the external testimony of the early 
Christian church that Christ and his apostles wrought 
miracles, in order to believe in miracles. Take away from 
Christendom the external evidence which the " eye-wit- 
nesses " (2 Pet. 1 : 16) and contemporaries of our Lord 
and his apostles gave to miracles, and belief in miracles 
would soon yield to sceptical attacks. The internal evi- 
dence alone would not save it. Take away from Christen- 
dom the testimony which contemporaries have given that 
the four Gospels were the productions of the four Evan- 
gelists, and belief in their infallible inspiration would soon 
die out. The internal evidence alone would not be suf- 
ficient to keep the faith of the church firm, after the 
invalidation of their genuineness and canonicity. We 
already see the mischievous effect of even the defeated 
attempt to destroy the force of the early ecclesiastical 
testimony and catholic tradition respecting the authorship 
of the Gospels, in lessening confidence in them as inspired 
narratives. 

And the reason is, that inspiration from the nature of 
the case belongs only to a very small circle, and not to 
mankind generally, nor to a nation generally. A book, in 
order to be inspired, must originate within this very 
small circle. Hence the question of authorship is insepa- 
rable from that of inspiration. Whoever could prove in- 
disputably that Matthew's gospel was not written by or 
under the superintendence of one of " those men which 
companied with the Lord Jesus all the time that he went 
in and out " on earth (Acts 1 : 21), and whom he set apart 
and endowed with both inspiration and miraculous powers, 
in order to found his church and prepare an authorita- 
tive account of his life and teachings for Christendom in 



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all time — whoever could indisputably prove that it was 
written by some unknown person in the second century 
who never saw Christ on earth and had no personal con- 
nection with him of any kind, would prove that it was a 
forgery and destroy human confidence in it. And this 
confidence would not be restored by merely saying, " The 
first Gospel was not written by Matthew, but whoever it 
was that wrote it he was inspired." For this makes the 
inspiration depend upon the testimony of the modern in- 
dividual who says so, instead of the testimony of the 
Primitive church. The only sponsor for the inspiration 
of an " unknown man " is the unknown man that asserts 
such an inspiration. 

Both the external and internal evidences for the inspi- 
ration of the Scriptures are necessary ; and so are both 
historical and saving faith. A man who is destitute of 
the former is never the subject of the latter; the former 
is a preparative to the latter. Sceptics, remaining such, 
are never converted. Consequently God provides the ex- 
ternal evidence which produces historical faith, as well as 
the inward operation of the Holy Spirit which produces 
saving faith. There is no need of undervaluing the very 
great strength of the internal evidence while insisting 
upon the full value of the external. Inspiration is a 
supernatural fact, like miracles ; and, as we cannot rely 
wholly upon the internal evidence for a miracle, upon its 
intrinsic nature and probability, but must bring in the ex- 
ternal evidence, namely, the actual seeing of it by an eye- 
witness, so in the case of inspiration, in addition to the 
nature of the truths taught and the probability that a 
benevolent and paternal Being would make some commu- 
nications to his creatures respecting their origin and eter- 
nal destiny, we must add that which comes from the testi- 
mony of those who lived contemporaneously with prophets 



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CALVINISM 



and apostles respecting their right to be regarded as the 
authors of the writings attributed to them, and the super- 
natural evidences which they gave that they were under 
a divine afflatus, and were the "holy men of God, who 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 



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XIY. 

CALVINISM AND THE BIBLE 

The question, What is the system of doctrine contained 
in the Westminster Confession, and what is essential to 
its integrity ? is more important than ever, now that the 
Presbyteries have voted in favor of revision, and the Gen- 
eral Assembly has instructed its committee u not to pro- 
pose any alterations or amendments that will in any way 
impair the integrity of the Reformed or Calvinistic sys- 
tem of doctrine taught in the Confession of Faith." The 
vote of the Church in answer to the overture of the fifteen 
Presbyteries shows that sixty-eight Presbyteries desire no 
revision at all of their Standards, and that ninety-two de- 
sire no revision that would alter the doctrinal system con- 
tained in them. This vote evinces that at least three- 
fourths of the Northern Presbyterian Church wish to be 
known as a Calvinistic denomination, in distinction from 
a Broad Church, tolerating all varieties of " evangelical " 
belief; and the general tenor of the discussion in the late 
Assembly was strongly against the dis-Calvinizing of the 
Confession. 

Some advocates of revision object to this decision of the 
Assembly to make Calvinism a test of revision, and de- 
mand that Scripture be the test. Of course Scripture is 
the only infallible rule of faith. But this particular way 
of appealing to Scripture is specious and fallacious. In 
the first place, it assumes that Calvinism is not Scriptural, 
an assumption which the Presbyterian Church has never 



152 



CALVINISM 



granted. This Church does not accept the alternative — 
the Bible or Calvinism — presented in this appeal. Its 
watchword is, The Bible and Calvinism. Secondly, this 
kind of appeal to Scripture is only an appeal to Scripture 
as the reviser understands it. " Scripture properly means 
the interpretation of Scripture ; that is, the contents of 
Scripture as reached by human investigation and exegesis. 
Creeds, like commentaries, are Scripture studied and ex- 
plained, and not the mere abstract and unexplained book 
as it lies on the counter of the Bible House. The infalli- 
ble Word of God is expounded by the fallible mind of 
man, and hence the variety of expositions embodied in the 
denominational creeds. But every interpreter claims to 
have understood the Scriptures correctly, and, conse- 
quently, claims that his creed is Scriptural, and if so, that 
it is the infallible truth of God. The Arminian appeals 
to the Articles of Wesley as the rule of faith, because he 
believes them to be the true explanation of the inspired 
Bible. For him they are the Bible in a nutshell. The 
Calvin ist appeals- to the creeds of Heidelberg, Dort, and 
Westminster as the rule of faith, because he regards them 
as the accurate exegesis of the revealed Word of God. 
By the " Bible " these parties, as well as all others who 
appeal to the Bible, mean their understanding of the 
Bible. There is no such thing as that abstract Scripture 
to which the revisionist of whom we are speaking appeals ; 
that is, Scripture apart from any and all interpretation of 
it. When, therefore, the advocate of revision demands 
that the Westminster Confession be "conformed to Script- 
ure," he means conformation to Scripture as he and those 
like him read and explain it. It is impossible to make 
abstract Scripture the rule of faith for either an individ- 
ual or a denomination. Iso Christian body has ever sub- 
scribed to the Bible merely as a printed book. A person 



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who should write his name on the blank leaf of the Bible 
and say that his doctrinal belief was between the covers, 
would convey no definite information as to his creed. He 
might be a Socinian, or a Calvinist, or anywhere between 
these extremes. The only question, consequently, before 
the Presbyterian Church is, Whether the Confession shall 
be kept conformed to Scripture as the Calvinist under- 
stands it, or as the non-Calvinist or anti-Calvinist under- 
stands it ; whether it shall continue to present that inter- 
pretation of Scripture which goes under the names of 
Augustine and Calvin, of Heidelberg, Dort, and West- 
minster, or that which goes under some other name, say 
that of " modern exegesis," or of " progressive theology." 
The Presbyterian Church has decided in favor of the first 
proposition. 

The question, What is Calvinism ? is mainly one of 
reasoning and discrimination. It relates to a matter of 
fact. This question will answer itself in the discussion 
now going on ; for this theological system possesses as 
distinctive features as the Copernican astronomy, and it 
will be as impossible to confuse and unsettle the religious 
world respecting the former, as it would be to confuse and 
unsettle the scientific world respecting the latter. The 
essential parts of this system are the well-known five 
points of Calvinism, namely, total depravity in distinction 
from partial ; unconditional election in distinction from 
conditional ; irresistible regenerating grace in distinction 
from resistible ; limited redemption (not atonement) in 
distinction from universal ; the certain perseverance of the 
regenerate in distinction from their possible apostasy. No 
one of these points can be rejected without impairing the 
integrity of Calvinism, any more than one of the points of 
the mariners' compass can be omitted and the scheme be 
complete ; any more than one of the contrary five points 



CALVINISM 



of Arminianism can be deleted and the theory remain un- 
altered. 

Tiie " Institutes " of Calvin, after all the development 
of the Reformed or Calvinistic type of doctrine by later 
theologians, still remains one of the best statements of this 
powerful system. The keen and aquiline eye of the most 
scientific theologian of the Reformation saw the funda- 
mental truths of revelation with an accuracy and precision 
that required no correction on his part. The great work 
of his early manhood remained essentially unchanged by 
him to the end of his career, and since his day it has laid 
at the foundation of all subsequent theologizing of this 
class, as the Principia of Newton has under all the suc- 
ceeding mathematics of Europe. While, however, a re- 
vision of the Westminster Standards that shall be true to 
their structure and system does not require that the 
peculiarities of individual Calvinists, even of Calvin him- 
self, or of Calvinistic schools should be followed, it does 
require that all of those constituent and formative tenets 
by which Augustinianism differs from Semi-Pelagianism, 
and Calvinism from Arminianism, shall be reaffirmed and 
maintained. Tiie revision must be conformed to the his- 
torical Calvinism as stated in the principal Reformed or 
Calvinistic eraeds, and not to Calvinism as constructed by 
any particular theologian, however able or popular in his 
own day and denomination. 

The Christian religion contains certain truths that are 
so indisputably taught in the Christian Scriptures, that 
their acceptance is necessary in order to be a Christian in 
the sense in which the first disciples were so called at An- 
tioeh. They are the doctrines of the trinity and incarna- 
tion, of apostasy and redemption, as they are generally and 
largely enunciated in tiie Apostles' and ]S"icene creeds. 
Respecting these, there has been little disagreement in 



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ancient, mediaeval, and modern Christendom. The Chris- 
tian religion also contains certain other truths which, both 
in the Scriptures and in the doctrinal systems constructed 
out of them, are implications and deductions from these 
cardinal doctrines. It is in reference to this class of more 
strict and precise tenets, that evangelical Christendom has 
from the first been divided into two great divisions. In 
respect to them, the ancient theologian was either Angus- 
tin ian or Semi-Pelagian; the modern theologian is either 
Calvinistic or Arminian. The difference between them 
relates principally to the more exact definition of original 
sin, of human freedom and ability, and of the Divine sov- 
ereignty and decrees. So long as Christian believers see 
through a glass darkly, there will be a speculative differ- 
ence between them on these abstruser parts of revelation 
that will affect more or less the stvle of the religious ex- 
perience, and make separate religious organizations desir- 
able. This difference has for fifteen centuries crystallized 
into two sharply-edged types of theology, and there are 
no signs that one will outreason and conquer the other. 
Calvinism and Calvinistic denominations will probably 
continue to exist to the end of time; and so will Armin- 
ianism and Arminian denominations. In the future, as in 
the past, all evangelical believers will belong either to one 
dogmatic division or the other. It is better, in these cir- 
cumstances, that both shall live and work side by side in 
frank and respectful recognition of each other, than to de- 
stroy the self -consistence of each by an attempt to combine 
both in a single system. Only these two general schemes 
of Christian doctrine are logically possible ; for schemes 
that deny the trinity and incarnation, the apostasy and 
redemption, are Deistic, not Christian. Both scientific 
theology and dogmatic history evince that there is no ter- 
tium quid between Calvinism and Arminianism, and that 



loo 



CALVINISM : 



the choice of an individual or a denomination, conse- 
quently, lies between one or the other. Semi-Pelagianism 
was a real mid- point between the tenets of Augustine and 
those of Pelagius ; but there is no true intermediate be- 
tween the system of Calvin and that of Arminius. In the 
history of doctrine there are sometimes semi-quavers, but 
demi-semi-quavers never. 

Such being the facts, it is of the utmost importance to 
the Presbyterian Church that it retain the historical Cal- 
vinism upon which it was founded, and by which it has 
prospered. But it is of even greater importance to the 
whole world. It is a common remark of historians and 
philosophers, that Calvinism lays very deep the founda- 
tions of religious belief, of moral order, of civil society, 
and general intelligence and virtue, and that forms of 
government and social institutions which rest upon it are 
invincible, and " cannot but by annihilating die." Should 
this type of doctrine and this form of the religious experi- 
ence disappear, Christendom would lose its balance-wheel. 
For it is no disparagement of the energy of evangelical 
Protestantism of all varieties, in the defence of the com- 
mon faith, and the war upon the common unbelief, to say 
that the Genevan theology is always in the front whenever 
a fearless position has to be taken in behalf of an unpopu- 
lar but revealed truth ; whenever the Christian herald 
must announce the solemn alternatives of salvation and 
perdition to a sensuous, a pleasure-loving, and an irritable 
generation ; whenever, in short, the stern and severe work 
of the perpetual campaign on earth against moral evil has 
to be done. Tiie best interests of the Christian religion 
and Church require the continual existence and influence 
of that comprehensive and self-consistent creed which 
Augustine formulated out of Scripture, and Calvin re- 
affirmed and re-enforced. Evangelical Arminians who do 



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157 



not adopt it feel its influence, praying it in their prayers 
and singing it in their hymns ; and Rationalists of all 
grades while recoiling from it acknowledge its massiveness 
and strength. It may, therefore, be confidently expected 
that whatever be the fortunes of a particular Church, or 
the tendencies of a particular time, this form of doctrine 
will perpetually survive in Christendom like the Script- 
ures out of which it was derived. 



158 



CALVINISM : 



XV. 

DENOMINATIONAL HONESTY AND HONOR 

Honesty is as important in theology as in trade and 
commerce, in a religious denomination as in a political 
party. Denominational honesty consists, first, in a clear 
unambiguous statement by a Church of its doctrinal be- 
lief ; and, second, in an unequivocal and sincere adoption 
of it by its members. Both are requisite. If a particular 
denomination makes a loose statement of its belief which 
is capable of being construed in more than one sense, it 
is so far dishonest. If the creed of the denomination is 
well-drawn and plain, but the membership subscribe to it 
with mental reservation and insincerity, the denomination 
is dishonest. Honesty and sincerity are founded in clear 
conviction, and clear conviction is founded in the knowl- 
edge and acknowledgment of the truth. Heresy is a sin, 
and is classed by St. Paul among the " works of the 
flesh," along with "adultery, idolatry, murder, envy, and 
hatred," which exclude from the kingdom of God (Gal. 
5 : 19-21). But heresy is not so great a sin as dishonesty. 
There may be honest heresy, but not honest dishonesty. 
A heretic w T ho acknowledges that he is such, is a better 
man than he who pretends to be orthodox while subscrib- 
ing to a creed which he dislikes, and which he saps under 
pretence of improving it and adapting it to the times. 
The honest heretic leaves the Church with which lie no 
longer agrees; but the insincere subscriber remains within 
it in order to carry out his plan of demoralization. 



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The recent discussions in the Presbyterian Church have 
disclosed a difference of sentiment respecting the value of 
denominational honesty. Some of the secular newspapers 
charge intolerance and persecution upon Presbyterians, 
when departures from the church creed are made the sub- 
ject of judicial inquiry, and when individuals are required 
to conform their teaching from the pulpit or the chair to 
the denominational standards. In this way a part of the 
public press is conniving at denominational dishonesty. It 
would permit church officers to subscribe to a creed and 
derive the benefit of subscription in the form of reputation 
or emolument, while working against it. The creed of 
a Church is a solemn contract between church-members ; 
even more so than the platform of a political party is be- 
tween politicians. The immorality of violating a contract, 
a portion of the press does not seem to perceive when a 
religious denomination is concerned ; but when a political 
party is the body to be affected by the breach of a pledge, 
none are sharper to see and none are more vehement to 
denounce the double-dealing. Should a faction arise 
within the Republican party, for example, and endeavor 
to alter the platform while still retaining the offices and 
salaries which they had secured by professing entire al- 
legiance to the party, and promising to adopt the funda- 
mental principles upon which it was founded and by 
which it is distinguished from the Democratic and other 
political parties, the charge of political dishonesty would 
ring through the whole rank and file of Republicanism. 
And when in the exercise of party discipline such faction- 
ists are turned out of office, and perhaps expelled from 
the political organization, if the cry of political heresy- 
hunting and persecution should be raised, the only answer 
vouchsafed by the Republican press would be that of 
scorn. When political dishonesty would claim toleration 



160 



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under cover of more " liberal " politics than the party is 
favoring, and would keep hold on party emoluments 
while advocating different sentiments from those of the 
mass of the party, it is curtly told that no one is com- 
pelled to join the Republican party or to remain in it, but 
that if a person does join it or remain in it, he must 
strictly adopt the party creed and make no attempts, 
secret or open, to alter it. That a Republican creed is for 
Republicans and no others, seems to be agreed on all 
sides ; but that a Calvinistic creed is for Calvinists and 
no others, seems to be doubted by some. 

The advocates of this view of a church creed and of 
creed subscription defend it upon the ground that it is 
proper to introduce improvements into a denominational 
creed ; that the progress in physics and the spirit of the 
age require new statements of ethics and religion ; and 
that this justifies the rise within a denomination of a party 
to make them, and requires that the denomination quietly 
look on and see it done. This means, for illustration, that 
a Church adopting the historical eschatology is bound to 
allow such of its members as think restorationism is an 
improvement, to attempt the introduction of it into the 
articles of faith ; or that a Church adopting the Wesleyan 
Arminianism is obligated to let any of its members who 
think unconditional election preferable to conditional, en- 
deavor to Calvinize it by introducing this tenet. But 
should a corresponding liberty be demanded in the polit- 
ical sphere, it would meet with no favor. If in the heart 
of the Democratic party a school should arise who should 
claim the right, while still remaining in the party, to con- 
vert the body to Republican principles and measures, it 
would be told that the proper place for such a project is 
outside of Democracy, not within it. The right of the 
school to its own opinions would not be disputed, but the 



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161 



right to maintain and spread them with the funds and in- 
fluence of the Democratic party would be denied. Demo- 
crats to a man would employ Luther's illustration in a sim- 
ilar instance : " We cannot prevent the birds from flying 
over our heads, but we can prevent them from making 
their nests in our hair." They would say to the malecon- 
tents, "We cannot prevent you from having your own 
peculiar views and do not desire to, but you have no right 
to ventilate them in our organization." Should the offi- 
cers of the New York custom-house or post-office insist 
upon employing the salaries of these large institutions in 
transforming the politics of the party that placed them 
there, no cry of " persecution " would deter the party from 
immediately cashiering the whole set. And yet some of 
the secular press, and some also of the religious, contend 
that it is proper for subscribers to the Westminster Con- 
fession to attempt a radical alteration of the denomination- 
al theology from within the denomination, and that it is 
suppressing free inquiry and the right of private judg- 
ment when seven-eighths of the Presbyterian Church rep- 
resented in its highest court, put a veto upon such an at- 
tempt. 

In such ecclesiastical action there is no denial of the 
right of private judgment, and of free inquiry into any 
system of doctrine whatever ; only, it is claimed that those 
who dissent from the accepted creed of the denomination, 
if they are a minority, must go outside of it if they wish 
to construct a new scheme. The satisfied majority have 
the right of free inquiry and private judgment as well as 
the dissatisfied minority, and in the exercise of it stand by 
the creed as it is. Consequently, if discontent with the de- 
nominational standard arises in the minds of some, the 
proper place for their experiments in theologizing is with- 
in a new organization, and not in the old one which does 
11 



162 



CALVINISM : 



not like their experiments. For this reason, from time 
immemorial, a religious denomination has always claimed 
the right to expel persons who are heretics as judged by 
the denominational creed. Only in this way can a denom- 
ination live and prosper. To throw down its doctrinal 
limits and convert itself into an unfenced common for all 
varieties of belief to ramble over, would not be useful 
either to society or religion. 

But here the question arises, Who is to interpret the 
church creed, and say whether a proposed scheme of doc- 
trine agrees with it, or contradicts it ? Who is to say 
what is heresy from the stand-point of the denominational 
system ? Certainly the denomination, and not the indi- 
vidual or school which is charged with heresy. This is a 
point of great importance. For those who are charged 
with heterodoxy commonly define orthodoxy in their own 
way, and claim not to have departed from what they re- 
gard as the essentials of the denominational system. The 
Arminian party in the Dort controversy contended that 
their modifications of doctrine were moderate and not an- 
tagonistic to the Reformed creeds. The Semi-Arians in 
the English Church asserted that their view of the Trin- 
ity did not differ essentially from that of the Nicene 
fathers. In each of these instances, the accused party 
complained that their statements were misapprehended by 
their opponents, and contended that the Church was mis- 
taken in supposing that they could not be harmonized 
with the ancestral faith. The same assertion of being 
misunderstood and the same claim to be orthodox, marks 
the existing trial in the Presbyterian Church. 

Now in determining what is the true meaning of the 
phraseology in a proposed alteration of the denominational 
creed, and what will be the natural influence of it if it is 
allowed to be taught, it is plain that it is for the denomi- 



PUKE AND MIXED 



163 



nation to decide. In case of a difference in under- 
standing and interpreting a written document containing 
proposed changes in the church creed, the rule of the 
common law applies, that the accused party cannot be the 
final judge of the meaning and tendency of his own docu- 
ment, but that the court must be. And the denomination 
is the court. There is no hardship or unfairness in this. 
A denominational judgment is very certain to be equi- 
table, be it in Church or State. The history of politics 
shows that the decisions of the great political parties re- 
specting the real meaning of their platforms, and the 
conformity of individuals with them, have generally been 
correct. And the history of religion also shows that the 
judgments of the great ecclesiastical bodies respecting the 
teachings of their standards, and the agreement or disagree- 
ment of particular schools of theology with them, have 
been accurate. Those individuals and parties who have 
been declared to be heterodox, politically or theologically, 
by the deliberate vote of the body to which they belonged, 
have generally been so. It is rare that the majority has 
been in error, and the minority in the right. 

Denominational honesty is closely connected with de- 
nominational honor. Those churches which have been 
the most frank in announcing their creed, and the most 
strict in insisting upon an honest interpretation and adop- 
tion of it by their membership, have been characterized 
by a scrupulous regard for the rights of other churches. 
Being satisfied with their own doctrinal position, and con- 
fident of the truth of their articles of faith, they have not 
invaded other denominations in order to alter their creed 
or to obtain their prestige. In this respect, the Calvinists 
of Christendom compare favorably with some of their op- 
ponents who charge them with illiberality and bigotry. 
It is true that in the times when the union of Church and 



164 



CALVINISM : PURE AXD MIXED 



State was universal, and the spread of any other religion 
but that of the State was regarded as menacing to the 
political weal, Calvinists like all other religious parties 
endeavored to suppress all creeds but the established. 
But they were ever in the van for the separation of 
Church and State, and for the religious toleration which 
naturally accompanies this. And ever since religious 
toleration has become the principle of Christendom, and 
the Protestant right of private judgment has become 
dominant, Calvinism has not been intolerant, or disposed 
to interfere with the creeds, institutions, and emoluments 
of other churches. It sets a good example in this respect. 
There is no instance upon record, that we remember, in 
which Calvinists have secretly tampered with the creed of 
another ecclesiastical body, and endeavored to seduce its 
membership from their loyalty to the articles of belief 
publicly adopted by them. From their own open and de- 
clared Calvin istic position, they have of course criticised 
and opposed other creeds, because they believed them to 
be more or less erroneous, but they have never adopted 
the plan of creeping into another denomination by sub- 
scribing to its articles, and then from that position en- 
deavoring to revolutionize the body which it professed to 
join in good faith. No part of Christendom has been 
more free from insincerity and dissimulation than the 
Calvinistic churches. 



i( TJie most learned and searching work in its line that hai 
appeared in this country within the present generation." 

— CHICAGO TRIBUNE. 

DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 

By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D., 

Pro/essor of Systematic Theology in Union Theological Seminary. 



Second Edition, Two Volumes, 8vo, with Portrait, Price S7.00. 



" Dr. Shedd's theology is full of the word of God in its very essence, it is pervaded by 
the great thoughts of the master-minds of all the ages, and it is presented to us in a style 
remarkable for its purity and clearness. The student who masters these volumes will be 
well armed for controversy and well equipped for teaching." — New York Observer. 

"These volumes are, in more senses than one, weighty. They are full of matter. Dr. 
Shedd is master of a singularly clear, strone, and expressive style, and wastes no words. 
Ample as are his discussions, there is nothing superfluous. His full, yet choice diction, 
admirably sets forth his profound and well ordered thought.'' — Watchman, Boston. 

"The two volumes are the result of eighteen years of special study, and of forty 
years labor in theological research. The treatment is such as might be expected of Dr. 
Shedd: scholarly, profound, devout, thorough." — New York Examiner. 

"As a whole, the work is the clearest and most exhaustive statement of dogmatic 
theology that has yet been made, and for that reason it is likely to attract as much atten- 
tion from scientists as from theologians." — Philadelphia Times. 

" The style never labors nor becomes obscure. The reader is never in doubt as to 
the meaning of the author. The work easily takes precedence among the various pres- 
entations of Puritan Calvinism, and will have a permanent value as an explanation ot 
that influential system of religious philosophy." — Andover Review. 

" Dr. Shedd's great power is in the clearness and fulness and exactness of his doc- 
trinal statements, and in their illustration. He is a master of sentences. No one can 
doubt his meaning. These volumes are therefore eminently readable and many an 
earnest student will find strength and inspiration in reading them thoroughly from end 
to end." — Chicago Standard. 

"Into these ample volumes, as into a reservoir, have flowed all the streams of Dr. 
Shedd's lifelong studies — literary, ethical, philosophical, exegetical, scientific, and theo- 
logical. It is delightful to think of the usefulness for generations of these volumes to 
ministers and students. To Dr. Shedd we extend our hearty thanks for this great 
work." — New York Evangelist. 

"There are two features of the work that specially aid in making it a fine text-book. 
In the first place, it is didactic rather than polemic. He states, expounds, and defends 
what he believes to be the true view and spends little time in expounding and opposing 
heresies. In the second place, the discussions are compact. The style is absolutely 
clear, and no subject that he undertakes to unfold is at all slighted, but there is no waste 
of words. We congratulate Dr. Shedd on the completion of this great work. We 
congratulate the readers of theology on their possession of it." — Rev. John DeWitt, in 
The Presbyterian Review. 

"The students of Dr. Charles Hodge will find it very profitable to put this work 
beside his. On some of the particulars of the Calvinistic or Augustinian, or Pauline 
system, the two differ. The contrast in the plan and working out and style of the two 
works is great. But they are the complements, each of the other. It will be an intel- 
lectual tonic to read the two together. We wish that every minister had them both." 

— Presbyterian Journal. 

"This vigorous, mature, and stately work is likely to become one of the standard 
authorities of scholarly orthodoxy. Its chief peculiarities are its solidity, scriptural- 
ness, and massive logical force. Professor Shedd is himself a master in theology, and 
he has reverence for masters in his own department." — Chir Day. 



Dr. Shecld's Works. 



" These volume s will take rank as they will naturally be compared with, the ency- 
clopaedic treatise of Dr. Charles Hodge, and they will stand well this severe test. Less 
full and exhaustive in the citation of authorities and the discussion of opposing views, its 
positive and constructive features are equally strong. In one feature Dr. Shedd's 
treatment of theological questions will be more satisfactory to many minds than Dr. 
Hodge's, and that is, the wider scope and office he accords to the reason, in the formula- 
tion and defence of doctrines. He writes from the postulate that while the reason may 
not independently discover the dogmas of revealed religion, and a revelation is necessary, 
yet a true dogma, when revealed, will be so accordant with reason, that its aid may and 
must be invoked for its understanding and confirmation." — Christian Intelligencer, 



DR. SHEDD'S OTHER WORKS. 



h. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN 

DOCTRINE. Two vols., crown 8vo. 
Seventh edition, cloth, $5.00. 

HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL 

THEOLOGY. One vol., crown 8vo. 
Seventh edition, cloth, $2.50. 

A CONCISE ANALYTICAL COM- 
MENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPIS- 
TLE TO THE ROMANS. One vol., 
crown 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 

SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL 

MAN. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 
$2.50. 



SERMONS TO THE NATURAL 

MAN. One vol., crown 8vo. Third 
edition, cloth, $2.50. 

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. One vol., 
8vo. Enlarged and carefully revised 
edition, cloth, $2.50. 

LITERARY ESSAYS. A series that 
relate principally to ^Esthetics and Lit- 
erature. With portrait. One vol., 
crown, 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 

THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS 

PUNISHMENT. One vol., crown 
8vo., $1.50. 



SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL MAN. 



" The thought which they express is not only profound and well wrought out, 
but it has a certain grip on the mind which insures more than a temporary influence 
however strong that may be." — Congregationalist, Boston. 

"All are nobly written. All contain passages which could have been produced 
by no one but a master of style. Most of them are truly eloquent, and their eloquence 
is of the highest type." — Presbyterian, Pa. 

"The last two discourses, entitled "Every Christiana Debtor to the Pagan," 
and " The Certain Success of Evangelistic Labor," place the duty of the world's 
Christianization upon its broad Scriptural foundations, and set forth the reasons for 
its progressive and ultimate triumphs with inspiring eloquence." — Christian Intelli» 
fencer, New York. 

41 To all minds awake and in earnest touching spiritual things, we can unre- 
servedly commend this volume. It will be sure to aid in the struggle against sin, and 
in victory over it." — New York Evangelist. 

"The sermons are peculiarly adapted for reading, and they are among the most 
ipiritual and thoughtful discourses that have been published in recent years."—* 
Wesleyan Christian Advocate. 



Dr. Shcdcl's Works. 



"Dr. Shedd's sermons command respect from the intellectual ability of then" 
luthor. They are interesting exhibitions of the way in which a modern Calvinist, 
»vho holds with great tenacity to the Augustinian theology, views divine progress in 
its relation to human character and destiny. The new departure has not yet invaded 
Dr. Shedd's mind to any extent. Consequently, to a progressive Christian thinker, 
\he premises of most of his discourses are unacceptable." — Christian Register^ 
Boston. 

" They are distinguished by a clear and luminous style, and the boldness and 
rigor which comes from profound conviction. No better volume of sermons, none 
more thoughtful, spiritual, or satisfying, has come from the press for a long time."— > 
Christian at Work, New York. 

" We commend these sermons to our readers ; for though, as a Presbyterian divine* 
we could not endorse all his views, yet, upon the great essential doctrines and duties 
of Christianity, we are much at one with him." — Churchman, New York. 



A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 



•* Dr. Shedd has furnished an important contribution to the study of church his- 
tory. To have made a readable book — a book which must interest the general scholar 
as well as the professed theologian— on a topic so difficult and so remote from the 
ordinary interests and literary currents of the time, is itself a rare and very great 
merit, demanding graceful recognition from all the scholars of the land." — North 
A merican Review. 

"It is many years since a more valuable contribution has been made, in this 
country or England, to theological literature ; one the study of which will yield riper 
fruits of Christian knowledge. These volumes are marked by a thoroughness of 
knowledge and clearness of statement, as well as by a certain vital element which 
pervades them, and which shows the love of the author for his great theme, and that 
he takes his position, not without but within his subject, and so relates the transfor- 
mations and developments of religious thought as if he had himself passed through 
them." — Bibliotheca Sacra. 

" We hold that this is the most important contribution that has been made to ouf 
theological literature during the present age." — Presbyterian Standard. 

" In our judgment, no production of greater moment has been given to the public 
for a long time." — Princeton Review. 

"A body of theological history which is in form as perfect as it is in substance 
excellent." — N. Y. Evening Post. 

" It well deserves an honorable and permanent place in the standard literature of 
theology." — New Englander. 

"A rich addition to our theological literature." — American Theological Review. 

" Dr. Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine, on its first appearance, was unani« 
mously recognized as filling with remarkable success a blank that had existed in our 
English literature on this important subject, and it still holds the foremost place in 
works of this class." — Edinburgh Daily Review, 



HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. 



"The work will be found to be an admirable guide and stimulus in whatever per- 
tains to this department of theology. The student finds himself in the hands of a 
master able to quicken and enlarge his scope and spirit. The homiletical precepts 
ire well illustrated by the author's own style, which is muscular, while quivering 
with nervous life. Nowadays one rarely reads such good English writing — elevated 
and clear, sinewy and flexible, transparent for the thought. Each topic is handled 
in a true progressive method. Our young ministers may well make a study of thia 
book," — American Theol. Review. 



Dr. Shedd's Works. 



COMMENTARY ON ROMANS. 

"No better discipline could be suggested to a young minister than a patient and faith" 
ful study of a volume like this .... not only because it is the freshest, but 
because it is so purely intellectual and spiritual, wasting no time upon side issues, but 
grappling manfully with the highest and most recondite themes." — Christian Intelli- 
gencer. 

"We know of no commentary by any living author on this epistle that, in our esti 
mation, deserves to be esteemed above it." — Hartford Religious Herald. 

"To the thorough learning of an accomplished scholar, it adds a style of special 
grace, luminous without superficiality, and, sparkling without levity."' — Lutheran Mis- 
sionary. 

"We consider this volume to be indispensable to a theological library." — Richmond 
Central Presbyterian. 

"We have been instructed, interested, and edified as we have turned over his 
pages, and while not agreeing with him in all particulars, we have always been com- 
pelled by him to revise our views, and give a reason for our preference." — Christian at 
Work. 

"The commentary is brief ; there is no verbiage, no amplification, no preaching; it 
is as clear as crystal." — Illustrated Christian Weekly. 

"We like thoroughly the keenly critical scholarship of Dr. Shedd's book and the 

vigor of his style We commend the work as an excellent stimulus, and a 

great help in doctrinal study." — Congregationalist. 

" Like the previous writings of Professor Shedd, this learned and scholarly volume 
is remarkable for the acute insight with which it applies profound philosophical principles 
to the elucidation of religious doctrine." — N~. Y. Tribune. 



LITERARY ESSAYS. 

" His productions are never of an ephemeral character; though often separated by 
a wide interval of years, they possess the unity which grows out of thoroughness of 
examination and earnestness of conviction ; powerful in argument, lucid in exposition, 
and effective in style, they challenge the interest of many readers who arc unable to 
assent to their conclusions." — X. Y. Tribune. 

'• Here is somethins deserving a permanent place in the realm of reading 

We wish to notice especially, commending it at the same time to the careful study of 
every one, the essay on 'The Influence and Method of English Studies.' .... We 
can, without hesitation, say, that it is one of the most profound, and thoughtful, and 
scholarly productions on this subject that we have ever read." — The Churchman. 

"The essays, one and all, are worthy of the Professors pen. They reveal extensive 
reading, culture of a high order, and sympathy with all that is true and beautiful and 
good in nature, in life, and in art.'"' — N. Y. Scotsman. 

"They bear the marks of the author's scholarship, dignity, and polish of style, and 
profound and severe convictions of truth and righteousness as the basis of culture as 
well as character." — Chicago Interior. 

"The severe and chastened beauty of his style is a fit vehicle for the lofty truths among 
which his mind ranges, and which he here announces and defends." — Presbyterian. 

"Dr. Shedd deals with themes not of passing but of enduring importance, and his 
productions on these subjects, being tho-e of a wide reader and profound thinker, will 
always be valuable." — Christian at Work. 



*%* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, z/pon receipt of 
)rice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



